1921-03-30

QUESTIONS

[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)

Mr. CASGRAIN:: 1.	Is the Government aware that there has been considerable hoarding of foodstuffs in cold storage throughout the country?
2.	If so, does the Government intend to take any special steps to bring down any legislation to prevent such conditions in the future?
3.	If so, when?
4.	If not, why? *


Hon. Mr. TOLMIE:: 1.	The Internal Trade Division of the Dominion Bureau of Statistics publishes monthly the holdings of foodstuffs in cold storage throughout Canada. Late returns do not reveal anything that may be fairly interpreted as "hoarding". It is necessary, if the public is to be provided with many foods of seasonal production during the seasons of scarcity, that these foods should be carried somewhere and by someone from the season of flush production to the season of non-production. It is advisable that all perishable foods should be carried in cold storage and is absolutely necessary in the case of some, if they are to be preserved in the best condition and without waste.
2.	The Government has already arranged for the publication of cold storage holdings of food products month by month. All the goods in cold storage are for sale at any time. If the returns indicate that there is a surplus over and above normal requirements the price is at once affected. There is no more effective regulator of prices. A large proportion of the foodstuffs held in cold storage is not owned by the owners of the warehouses but belongs to merchants, dealers, producers and consumers. In many warehouses none of the goods are owned by the proprietor of the warehouse.
3	and 4. Answered by 1 and 2.


CANADA WHEAT BOARD
*Mr. BLAIR:: 1.	How many telegrams, letters, petitions and
resolutions did the Government receive from Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, between August	1,	1919, and	January	1,	1920,	(a)
Approving of the Canada Wheat Board; (b) Disapproving of the Canada Wheat Board?
2.	How many telegrams, letters, petitions and
resolutions did the Government receive from Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta between August	1,	1920, and	January	1,	1921,	(a)
Approving of the Canada Wheat Board? (b) Disapproving of the Canada Wheat Board?


Right Hon. Mr. MEIGHEN:: 1.	(a) None; (b) Twenty-six.
2.	(a) One hundred and forty-one; (b) None. '*


PRINTING BUREAU EMPLOYEES
Mr. TOBIN:: 1.	How many employees at the Government Printing Bureau are obliged to work overtime?
2.	What proportion of their regular salary do they receive for this overtime work?
3.	How many employees were dismissed from the Printing Bureau during the past two years?
4.	Why have none of these employees been reengaged?


Sir HENRY DRAYTON:: 1.	All employees, when necessary.
2.	Classified employees are not paid for overtime. Employees on prevailing rates are paid for overtime as follows: First three hours, time and a half; thereafter, double time.
3.	Retirements, 355; employees on Order in Council who died before retirement was effected, 3; positions declared abandoned by the Civil Service Commission, 5; charwomen transferred to Public Works Department, 51; employees transferred to Public Archives Department, 2; dismissals, 10; total, 426.
4.	Six have since been re-engaged.


FORT GARRY HOTEL, WINNIPEG
Mr. MOLLOY:: 1.	What amount of fire insurance is carried on the Fort Garry Hotel, Winnipeg?
2.	What amount of fire insurance is carried on the contents of the hotel?
3.	Is there any stipulation in the wording of policy as to amount to be carried?
4.	At what rate is the Insurance written?
5.	What is the number of years the insurance is written for?
6.	What are the names of the companies writing the insurance?
7.	Are they licensed in the Dominion of Canada?
8.	What are the names of the brokers who placed the insurance?


Hon. Mr. REID (Grenville) :: 1,	2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. The Fort Garry Hotel is insured for $700,000, and contents

for $300,000. The following companies carry the insurance, viz:	Western Assurance Company, London Guarantee and Accident, St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Company, Boston Insurance Company, Westchester Fire Insurance Company, all of which have licenses in the Dominion. The insurance was placed through Toronto Insurance and Vessel Agency.


GOVERNMENT STEAMER &quot;LAURENTIAN&quot;
Mr. COPP:: 1.	Is the steamship "Laurentian" owned by the Government?
2.	If so. when was she purchased? from whom? and what price was paid?
3.	Was said steamer out of repair and tied up at Saint John for five months or for any time? If so, for what length of time?
4.	During the time said steamer was so tied up in St. John how many of the crew remained aboard?
5.	What were the wages per diem of said crew during the time she was so tied up?
6.	Was said steamer repaired? If so, when were such repairs made? by whom? and what was the cost of such repairs?
7.	Was this steamer under charter with any department of the Government prior to purchase, and if so, with what department, and what was paid per year under said charter.
8.	Was the steamer at any time owned or under the control of the Davie Wrecking Company of Quebec and by said company offered for sale to the Government? If so, when and at what price?


Hon. Mr. BALLANTYNE:: 1.	Yes.
2.	The "Laurentian" was purchased in April, 1917, from the Canada Steamship Lines, Ltd., for $50,000.
3.	Yes, four months.
4.	Twenty-two.
5.	$47.99.
6.	Yes. Between May 29 and October 30, 1920. New Burrell Johnson Iron Co., Ltd., and others. Total $48,638.43.
7.	Yes. Customs Department. The sums paid were: 1911-12, $7,043.24; 1912-13, $8,-
000.00; 1913-14, $7,300.00.
8.	The "Laurentian" was offered for sale to the Department of Marine and Fisheries in 1911, by Geo. T. Davie & Son. No price named.


CANADIAN NORTHERN RAILWAY VESSELS
Mr. PAPINEAU:: 1.	How many steamships were owned and operated by the Canadian Northern Railway on the 1st of October, 1917?
2.	What is the number of steamships now owned or operated by the Canadian Northern Railway?
3.	What are their names and tonnage of each?


Hon. Mr. REID:: 1.	Four steamerS and two barges.
2.	Six steamers and three barges.
3.	Germania, 105.90 gross tons; Sebastian, 102.8 gross tons; Canora, 3,382.66 gross tons; Dalhousie City, 1,255 gross tons; Garden City, 637 gross tons; Northumberland, 1,255.46 gross tons; barges- C.N.P. No. 1, 676.67 gross tons; C.N.P. No. 2, 676.67; C.N.P. No. 3, 676.67 gross tons.


CANADIAN POSTAL GUIDE
Mr. PAPINEAU:: 1.	Is it the intention of the Post Office Department to continue the publication of the Postal
Guide?
2.	Have the standing forms, which heretofore have been kept standing for the printing of this volume, been destroyed?
3.	If so, by whose direction and for what
purpose?	*
4.	If the publication of the Postal Guide is to be continued, will the type have to be reset?


Sir HENRY DRAYTON:: 1.	Yes.
2.	Yes.
3.	The breaking up of this standing type is under consideration by His Honour Colin George Snider, Judge of the County Court of the County of Wentworth, in the province of Ontario, under a commission dated December 27, 1920, issued under the Inquiries Act, which has been amended and extended so as to authorize the said commissioner to inquire into the particulars of all material and equipment purchased, sold or otherwise disposed of, in or from the Printing Bureau since January 1, 1919.
4.	The type for the publication of the Postal Guide has been reset.


CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS-TRAIN AGENTS
*Mr. LEMIEUX:: 1.	How many train agents are there on the Canadian National Railway system?
2.	What is the salary of a train agent?
3.	Is the train agent appointed to assist the conductor?
4.	Since when were such train agents appointed?
5.. Have the train conductors ever applied for the assistance of train agents?


John Dowsley Reid: Assuming that by
"train agents", ticket collectors are meant, the management reply as follows: 1 2 3 4 5
1.	25.
2.	$150 to $175 per month.
3.	No.
4.	June, 1910.
5.	No record of such application.


FARMERS AND FARM LABOURERS IN CANADIAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCE
Mr. GOULD:: 1.	How many men were in the Canadian Expeditionary force immediately prior to demobilization?
2.	How many of these were farmers or farm labourers?
3.	How many stated that they might take advantage of Land Settlement Scheme?
4 What was the average wealth of the discharged soldiers upon discharge, excluding war service gratuity or pensions?


Sir HENRY DRAYTON:: 
CABINET MINISTERS AND POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT
Mr. DELISLE:: Are certain ministers or any committee charged with the conduct of the Post Office Department in spite of the fact that there actually is a Postmaster General?


Right Hon. Mr. DOHERTY:: The answer is "No".	-	[DOT]


CIVIL SERVICE LIST
Mr. PROULX:: 1.	Is it true that the Editorial Committee, appointed by the Government, on the alleged giound of economy have discontinued the printing of the Civi-l Service List?
2.	If so, in view of the vast number of reports and blue books of doubtful value still being printed, is not the cancellation of the Civil Service List somewhat inconsistent?
3.	Is the Government aware that nearly all banks and stores depend on the Civil Service List for authentic information upon which to extend credit to the members of the service for the necessaries of life in the same way that they use Dunn's or Bradstreet's?
4.	Will the Government consider the reissue of the List?


Sir HENRY DRAYTON:: 1.	No. The duty of preparing and publishing the Civil Service List was among the duties assigned to the Civil Service Commission by Section 36 of the Act of 1918, but was eliminated from the Amending Act of 1919, and the last edition was published in the fall of 1918 by the said Commission.
2.	In the fall of 1918 the work of reorganization commenced, to be followed by a complete reclassification of the personnel of the service, and is now rapidly approaching completion. Obviously it was impossible during that period to publish any list of the employees of the service which

would have been of any practical value or utility.
3.	No information.
4.	As soon as the classification is completed it is the intention of the Civil Service Commission to recommend to the Government that a new edition of the Civil Service List be at once published.


CIVIL SERVICE BONUS
Mr. ETHIER:: Is it the intention of the Government to increase the bonus paid to civil employees, and in what proportion comparatively to the bonus granted in previous years


Right Hon. Mr. MEIGHEN:: The answer to this question was given last week, when I stated to the House that the bonus was to be reduced twenty-five per cent, commencing the first of the fiscal year.


GERMAN GOODS-FIFTY PER CENT HOLDBACK
Mr. RINFRET:: 1.	Is it the intention of Canadian Government to hold back from all payments made for goods purchased in Germany a sum of fifty per cent, as recently ordered by the British Government?
2.	If not, is it the intention of the Canadian Government to inform the House immediately as to the matter and to advise accordingly Canadian importers who buy goods in Germany?


Arthur Meighen: No decision to this eifect has been come to. Inquiries are being made regarding the subject.



QUESTIONS PASSED AS ORDERS FOR RETURNS

Mr. REID (Mackenzie) :: 1.	Of the 18,000 box cars ordered for the Canadian National Railways, when were the said cars ordered?
2.	If ordered at different dates, what year and month were the orders placed?
3.	What are the names of firms building same?
4.	Were tenders called or are they being built on order?
5.	If built on basis of cost plus percentage, what percentage or profit is allowed?
6.	What is the cost of LOOT box cars?
7.	How many cars have been delivered, and on what dates?
8.	How many new ears were put in grain carrying trade west of Fort William?
9.	What is the maximum grain carrying capacity of said cars?
10.	Are the said cars fitted with hopper bottoms for speedy unloading at terminals?
11.	Are the 18,000 box care above mentioned in addition to cars which were added to replace broken or worn out box cars?


Mr. SUTHERLAND:: 1. Under what authority did the Department of Agriculture enter into contracts with ele-[Sdr Henry Drayton.]
vator companies for the purchase of screenings from grain subsequent to the year 1911?
2.	Was this authority given by .Order in Council or authorized by Parliament, and on what date?
3.	If by Order in Council, on whose recommendation to Council was the said order passed?
4.	How many contracts for purchase were made, with what companies, on what dates, at what price and what is the total amount paid to each to date?
5.	In what province or provinces were they disposed of, what quantity in each province both ground and unground and what price was received?
6.	What was the cost of advertising the sale of these screenings?
7.	What proportion of noxious weed seed contents were permissable under the terms of the contracts?
8.	Have any purchasers of screenings from the Department refused acceptance of same .'1
9.	If so, in how many instances; What quantity, and on what grounds?
10.	How were the refused screenings disposed of and at what price?
11.	How does the matter stand at present between the Department and contractors?
12.	What company or companies have supplied screening not up to the standard called for in contract?
13.	Have any refunds been collected from any company as a result of screening not being up to the standard?
14.	If so, from what company and for what amount?
15.	Is it the intention of the Department to take steps to collect from companies which supply screening not up to standard called for in contracts?


Mr. ARMSTRONG (Lambton) :: 1
1.	How much money was expended by the Dominion Government, in each province in the Dominion, for road building purposes during the year 1920?
2.	How much money was expended by the Dominion Government, in each province, for Technical Education under the Agricultural Instruction Act in the year 1920?
3.	How much money was expended by the Dominion Government to assist agricultural fairs held in each province in 192-0 ?
4.	How much money was expended by the Dominion Government in the year 1920 in the various provinces in operating a selling organization for the purpose of disposing of livestock, etc.?
5.	What was the total amount expended by the Dominion Government in 1920 towards assisting and developing agriculture?
6.	What was the total amount expended in the year 1911 by the Dominion Government towards assisting and developing agriculture?
7.	How much money was expended by the Dominion Government in the year 1920 in connection with the Housing Act in the respective provinces?
UNOPPOSED MOTIONS FOR PAPERS Mr. CASGRAIN:
For a copy of Order in Council passed the middle of this month for the purpose of amalgamating the mail superintendent's department with that of the postal inspector's.



FRENCH TREATY

Mr. JOSEPH ARCHAMBAULT (Charn-bly and Vercheres) moved:: For a copy of the new treaty of commerce between France and Canada.


Arthur Meighen: A copy of the treaty was placed on the Table yesterday, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. SPEAKER:: Dropped.


Hon. Mr. FIELDING:: Has my right
hon. friend taken steps to have the treaty printed?


Arthur Meighen: I am communicating
with the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir George Foster). I rather expected he would be here to-day to move for printed copies.


William Stevens Fielding: The Government does not need to move for printed copies. The treaty ought to be brought down in printed form.	. v


Arthur Meighen: I understand a motion is necessary as to the number of copies to be printed.


William Stevens Fielding: Printed copies of many documents are brought down without motion.


Arthur Meighen: The treaty will be
printed.



TORONTO CUSTOMS OFFICIALS

Joseph Archambault: For a statement showing- the names of the examining officials of the Customs Department, Toronto, and the respective salaries of each of said officials.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Mr. HERMAS DESLAURIERS (St. Mary's) moved:: Whereas the question of unemployment in our large cities has become a serious problem; whereas the Government is going to study this question; whereas in Europe this social problem is just as great a menace as here and such being the case Canada is exposed to the risk of receiving more or less undesirable immigrants; therefore be it resolved: That, in the opinion of this House, all immigration should be suspended until a normal condition of affairs is established.	1
(Translation.) First of all, Mr. Speaker, I wish to inform the House that I am taking the full and sole responsibility of this motion and it is as such that I intend discussing it.
It is not my intention to argue as to whether Canada is now facing the problem of unemployment, because it is a fact recognized by all including the Government who shall have to appropriate shortly a certain amount of money to that end. What I propose to establish is why the working class, the people who are hungry, are asking that immediate steps shall be taken by the Government who are largely responsible for this serious question of unemployment.
In 1919, the former Prime Minister (Sir Robert Borden) went to Europe accompanied by Mr. Draper, secretary of the Trades and Labour Congress with the object-so they claimed at the time-of protecting the interests of Canaditn labour. The Government press highly ptaised our representatives for having supported article 427, paragraph 4 of the Peace Treaty concerning the eight-hour day or the 48 hour week. Since then nothing has been done by the Government. The workers are still being kept for many hours in unsanitary factories at a time when unemployment has reached an acute stage. I repeat that the Government have done nothing while they should have compelled the manufacturers to employ a larger number of men to have the same amount of work done within shorter hours and at the same rate of pay, which would have reduced the number of unemployed and bettered the general condition of the workingmen.
In 1919, a Housing Bill was passed by this Government granting $25,900,000 for the construction of tenements, but they introduced such impossible and impracticable provisions that even their own friends were unable to avail themselves of that legislation.
At that time the object was to aiford to the labourers an opportunity to build houses for themselves and to avoid unemployment. The whole question was well organized camouflage and nothing else.
On the 1st of June, 1920, in this House, I had the privilege of suggesting to the Government several means to avoid unemployment, but they were not considered. I spoke then as follows:
The chief cause of suffering in our cities is imputable solely to the Department of Labour, which refuses to enact the legislation necessary to prevent the present-day disorders through fear of displeasing the high protectionists. X am speaking of enforced idleness.
This unemployment is caused by irregular work, mainly due to lack of organization, to business depression or to seasonal fluctuations. If we had a competent Department of Labour these problems could easily be solved by following the example of other countries. Cotuild we not set up a well organized central labour exchange in our principal cities and enact a law forbidding the employer from hiring workmen at the factory gate and obliging him to apply to the labour exchange? There the worker

would have to give his name and his trade; each one by turn would be supplied with work and the salary paid would be that established by the labour unions. In this way we would get rid of the sight of hundreds and hundreds of workers anxiously waiting every morning at the factory gate for employment which never comes; these poor, men waste weeks and even months in these vain attempts to find work, while their families are suffering the direst poverty.
An equitable distribution of Government contracts during periods of stagnation, would also help to overcome this problem of unemployment. Old people and children under eighteen years of age should have to work only during a limited number of hours. Every year the Budget should contain an appropriation for widows so as to oblige them to bring up theii children properly and relieve them of the necessity of spending long hours in the workshop to earn a pitiful salary. In this way all labour would be absorbed and our economic distress forestalled.
Another method of overcoming this problem of unemployment would b,e insurance such as they have in several cities of Germany where it is coupled with medical attention in return for a reasonable contribution which the employer deducts from the worker's pay envelope. In several countries, especially in Belgium, Norway, Denmark and Holland, the Gand system is followed and seems to give satisfaction; under this system the public authorities on the recommendation of the Department of Labour, vote certain subsidies to the labour unions as a reward for services rendered the State; this ensures comfort for the workers and gives relief to the State by preventing just so much hardship.
Now, Mr. Speaker, none of these suggestions were taken into consideration. Why? Because the Government is not in sympathy with the labourer; they profess a systematic indifference for them. We were first apprised of it in the Speech from the Throne when the suggestion was made of pensions to old age and insurance against unemployment. This Government cannot deny that the present 'social turmoil comes from their war policy and they are altogether wrong when they shift their responsibilities on the municipalities or on the provinces. The labourer who sufferers today of privations knows what the policy of the Government means so far as labour is concerned; experience has taught him what a consideration by this House of the question of insurance against unemployment involves. He anticipates the appointment of a commisssion which will be, like all other empowered to hold meetings, congresses; where so-called labour leaders, intimates of the minister of Labour will be present, where resolutions learned by heart will be delivered and where, as usual, nothing will be done. Meanwhile, the people who have an immediate need of bread are entitled to claim that the conditions be not made more distheartening by dumping on 
our country a continuous flow of immigrants. They have a right to protest against the utterances of gentlemen like Lloyd George, Bonar Law and others who, on the floor of the British House of Commons say that, to solve their social problems, there is but one means and it is to send to the Dominions their undesirables.
Mr. Speaker, the labourers who are idle to-day felt very keenly the resolution adopted in March of last year at a banquet held in Montreal by the Manufacturers' Association to subscribe a million and more in order to maintain the present policy of the Government, namely, a policy of high protection in the interest of manufactures, which is the very cause of their sufferings, because since that time our Workers were one after the other deprived of employment and they have the right to know when we shall see the end of this endless million and whether the Government will always be indifferent to their fate and will not change their so-called policy of moderate protection, which is but a policy of high protection, to another one which would promote a fair and just competition.
It is said by many that the unemployed are more numerous in our'towns, but that, in order to solve that problem we have only to say to them: "If you have no work in the cities, there is a shortage of labour in the country, we have thousands of acres of arable land which is not under culture."
Allow me to say that this answer which is meant to solve the serious problem of unemployment, is merely a childish one. I do not hesitate to state in this House the the fact that there is a shortage of labour in the country, for it must be admitted, but this condition exists only during the crop season, that is, during two months or at the most four months, and during the other eight months of the year, the employer, in the country, may dismiss his hired man when he does not require his services any longer. It is quite exceptional to find a farmer who can afford to pay such fair wages as will allow a man to establish a home and provide food for it, during these two months of the year. Besides, if we should wish for proofs of this fact, we must not content ourselves with listening to street rumours, or the sayings of some person or other, but we must consult the official provincial reports. You have but to consult the provincial report for Montreal, and you wil find that the labour exchange has not been successful in placing in the country some of the unemployed, because the wages offered by the farmers

were hardly sufficient for a man to obtain his living.
I say that these wages are not sufficient, during two or four months of the year. Wages that are hardly sufficient for one man would certainly not be enough for him to establish a home and provide for it. Besides, Mr. Speaker, these men who are unemployed to-day have no savings, and they have none for the very reasons which are given by the Labour Gazette, because, during the war, the high cost of living, which was due to the profiteers did not allow them to put anything aside. And this is proven by the fact that the Government has now to appropriate money out of the public funds to support these people who have been reduced to beggary. I believe, Mr. Speaker, that it would be more practical to do away completely with the Public Works Department, in Ottawa, and all its subsidies which amount to over $1,500,00 and to utilize this in helping those who wish to return to the land.
Until now, particularly since the last two or three years, the Public Works Department has done nothing but a well organized camouflage, nothing else. These subsidies which are granted by a useless Department might easily be appropriated towards helping these people, who have no savings whatever and who wish to return to the land, by providing them with agricultural implements, horses and the necessary cattle for farm work, in a word with a sufficient grant to help them until they are able to harvest the fruits of their labour, instead of employing these subsidies in distributing the Labour Gazette which floods the country with useless statistics. Why prove to the people that the salaries are not in keeping with the high cost of living? Would it not be enough to unsettle the minds of the people? This Department, instead of helping the workingman interferes with them considerably. These people who, through force of circumstances, have been left without any economies, have to return to the city, when the crop season is over, and what awaits them there? They see shiploads of immigrants entering our ports, and these immigrants work themselves into our midst and take the place of heads of families at insufficient and sometimes ridiculous salaries, but to the entire satisfaction of the manufacturers. Such salaries would be sufficient for men without homes, who are packed in congested quarters and have no taxes whatever to pay, and often these men are most un-86
desirable, nothing but adventurers or old offenders.
Allow me to read the following in support of my contention:
Recorder Geoffr -.i, a few days ago, sentenced to three months at hard labour, a man named Patrick Read, a South-African soldier, who had been a leader in a recent raid on the Child's restaurant by the so-called unemployed.
It has been discovered that Read is one of a number of immigrants that England sent us a couple of years ago. Upon his arrival in this country, Read decided to settle in the West, and first established himself in Winnipeg. But he was evidently not interested in agriculture. Neither was he very anxious to help in the work of reconstruction which Canada had to face after so many years of war.
Like so many other veterans who are a charge to England, Read thought that, as he had fought in the war, the country should now support him. And the mother country thought fit to get rid of him by sending him to the "colonies".
As soon as he arrived amongst the Western "colonials", Read visited the working classes, and he was one of the leaders when a general strike was attempted at Winnipeg.
Attracted, no doubt, by the announcement that those having no other calling now than being veterans of the Great War were playing an important part in the disorders instigated not by the unemployed, hut on their behalf, Read came to Montreal and launched into the fray with the result which one knows.
Now is the time when those who govern us in Ottawa should remember that Canada is not a colony but a confederation enjoying homo rule, and when the immigrants England send to our shores by ship-loads should he watched more closely. Downing Street has no right to send us Great Britain's undesirables.	[DOT]
If we do not want outsiders to come and sow trouble among our peaceful working classes, it is high time that the press of the country should remind the powers that be that there are people who, even if not plague-stricken, are ho less a menace than the oon-tagious or infectious diseases
Upon that score, I concur in the opinion uttered last year by Sir Andrew McPhail before the Canadian Club in Ottawa. This is what he said about those incoming undesirables :
Now I ask you to cast your minds back upon the public undertakings of this country for the last forty years, and you will observe that they were all intended for the benefit of the hypothetical immigrant. If a railway was built, it was intended to open up a country, to develop something, to carry immigrants; but the immigrants have not come. If they come, they come to the wrong place, to the cities.
It is quite true that we are scrutinizing the immigrant. It is also true that the immigrant is beginning to scrutinize us and to ask what we have to offer in opposition to other countries. For many years they have had this passion for what they called freedom. They came to this country expecting to achieve it. They are finding now, to their cost, that this country is perhaps not so free as they expected it would be. The shipload of undesirable im-



migrants which was sent back to Russia is a warning to the world that we do not propose that our civilization shall be overwhelmed as the civilization of Russia has been overwhelmed. We shall not, then, expect to attract people on that ground, because they have destroyed their governments in their own countries and they have there all the 'freedom they could possibly desire.
The workman, who nowadays undergoes hardships, knows by experience that the Government labour policy is a superficial one which consists in resorting to the camouflage year in and year out. The Government said many things as to that but they did nothing at all. They shielded the big interests, the moneyed men, the manufacturers, who are friendly to them. Mr. Speaker, I am amazed when I notice in the newspapers people who advise us to be patriots and who venture to state that Canada to-day is able to provide for herself, that she begets every thing she needs. That I think was the last opinion on that question uttered in Montreal by the hon minister of Finance. Now, let me say that to reprove is not all and that jt is far better to practice what one preaches. It is useless to tell to the people: "You must buy all your goods in Canada if you want the war tax to be taken off." To give some value to such an advice one thing is necessary: that the producers set such a price on their goods as will encourage the consumer and keep him from going and buying out of the country.	[DOT]
Allow me to give a few instances in order to prove whether or not those preachers practice what they advocate.
L'lnformation of March 3, 1921, has this to say:
First instance:
The St. John "Globe" relates the following incident:	" The owner of an hotel in this
city wanted to buy an electrical machine for the washing of dishes. A Canadian firm was asking $190 for a machine of the required capacity. Proceeding with his investigations, the hotel-keeper was told that in the United States he could buy a similar machine for $100. Of course, the intending buyer came to the conclusion that the difference would b'e more than sufficient to pay the custom duties, the transportation charges and the exchange rates, and he brought in that machine from the U.S."
Second instance:
Following an exhibition of goods made . in Canada, a manufacturer exclaimed before a group of newspaper men that after such an exhibition it would have been difficult not to buy only goods made in Canada. Among his hearers was a representative of the " Farmer's Sun " who pointed out to the manufacturer that he should himself have been the first to set the good example. The manufacturer having protested, some inquiries were made in order to know how far that newspaper man was right, and this is what that manufacturer was
(Mr. Deslauriers. [
wearing: his hat, his shirt, his collar, his shoes had been made in the United States ; his necktie, in Germany; his suit, in England; his gloves, in France;' his socks and watch in Switzerland ; even the trinkets he had in the pockets of his coat, such as pencils, penknives and1 so forth, had been imparted, not to mention handkerchiefs and underwear which, without a single exception, all bore foreign trade marks.
Third instance:
A few years ago, let us say, at the beginning of the war, a great Canadian paper-maker had sent out many thousand copies of a circular letter in order to remind his customers and the general public how important it was then more than ever to encourage the native industry and to use for all purposes only paper coming from Canadian establishments, from, the fine writing paper, passing through wrapping paper, to the coarse coardboard used in the making of boxes. A reader wanted to make sure whether or not the manufacturer himself was setting the example.
He took the circular, and lifting it to the height of his eyes towards a window, he found that a commercial water-mark in the paper showed that the latter came from an American manufacturer; the envelope similarly tested also showed that it had been made on the other side of the line.
Now, Mr. Speaker, there is a conclusion to be drawn from these quotations. It is that if we wish to do away with Canada's war debt we must do otherwise than is done by these famous preachers of patriotism. Why should not the Government show themselves as practical as they were until last fall, when they so delighted in issuing Orders in Council? What they did in the matter of sugar, they could do again with regard to other staples, and the public would certainly not complain. But they will not. And why? Because they are prevented by their friends. These men, accustomed in war time to reap scandalous profits under cover of patriotism, these patriots who came and declared in an industrial conference that they are not working for prayers and that they are drawing dividends of 175 and 200 per cent; who do not want to abate their greediness and do not want to sacrifice anything for the sake of others; these men long in their hearts to see workmen on their knees soliciting famine wages, and they wish above all to reach and destroy the most legitimate unions.
As the representative of an electoral college of 70,000 souls-which means that I do not represent timber limits and thousands of prairie acres, but individuals, in this House-I do not hesitate to declare that the people have come to this that they will not any longer allow themselves to be fooled by words; they can still be for some time kept in want, even obliged to become

professional beggars.- They can stand even more. At this moment, when these people have but the bare necessaries and are even reduced to mendicancy, every week in the hostelries of our large cities, great Balthasar banquets are organized where gorging is going on under their eyes, at the expense of the Liberal-National-Conservative party. The people look on, notice these; and some day they will enter these festive halls, and toil hardened hands shall write upon their walls the fateful words which you know well-Marie, Thecel, Phares-You have been weighed and found wanting. Then will be the hour of retribution, the hour of justice. No gold, nor silver will then have any effect on the soul, on the mind of these people; judgment shall be at hand and each shall be judged according to his works; the partisans of the Government may well clamour, as was done in 1896, that if the Liberal party should come back to power, it would spell disaster for Canada, ruin for the country; they may well exhaust their stock of mournful rhapsodies over smokeless chimneys, over silent looms, empty workshops, and so forth, these people, whose motto is " I remember," will remember Laurier and his policy; they will put their confidence in the personality of the leader of the Opposition, his colleague of yesterday and the standard-bearer of his policy. All those trickeries will come to naught, and once more, if Providence wills it, Canada shall see days of prosperity and happiness.
Mr. Speaker, we are told in the press, in pamphlets, we are told everywhere, that there is at present but one way of remedying the state of our finances, bringing in immigrants. I for one do not admit without discussion this proposition. There was a time, now gone by, when immigration was a boon to this country. Immigration is a question of business. Love of money, personal interest, hide under the cloak of love of man. I share the idea of Sir Andrew McPhail, that that time has gone by, and if we wish to preserve our institutions, it is time that we should put an end to the propaganda going on in the four corners of the world, emphasizing the liberty which we enjoy and which in reality is no greater than elsewhere. In the name of this liberty are drawn to our shores all immigrants without distinction. Any immigrant wishing to come to us should be made aware of what he must expect here. Beside the matter of mentality, the ques-[DOT]tion of morality, there is one thing which must not be lost sight of. It is that every
86&
immigrant entering the country incurs obligations, is subject to taxation. I could on this subject bring forth the testimony of many eminent men whose authority would be recognized by this House, but I will confine myself to quoting a statistical statement of Sir Andrew McPhail. This'is what he said in 1920 before the Canadian Club of Ottawa:
And next in importance comes the question of the taxes and the obligations which the immigrant must assume; and for this purpose I have taken some pains to draw up a statement of the obligation in which a man immigrating to Ottawa would involve himself. I have drawn it up on the basis of a man, his wife and four children constituting the family. Coming from the Province of Quebec, I do not think that is an excessive estimate; I should say it was a minimum. I have assigned to this immigrant coming with his family to the City of Ottawa an earned salary of $5,000, which is not excessive; and not to- trust to my loose memory, I should like to read to you precisely where such a' man would stand.
You invite to Canada immigrants of the best type-the type, for example, who could earn $5,000-the man with a wife and four children. Here is his budget in respect of capital obligations, of interest payable, and of taxes to meet expenditure. The per capita debt of Canada is $366 ; of Ontario it is $30 ; and of Ottawa it is $167; making a total of $563 per person. Multiplied by 6, that imposes upon your immigrant a capital obligation of $3,378. The annual interest payable on the Canadian debt is $18.25, on Ontario $1,65, on Ottawa, $9.20; making $29.10. His annual interest charge, then, is $1.74. Here is a recapitulation of the obligation which the immigrant who earns five thousand dollars a year is under. The Canada tax is $212.52, for interest and expenses; for Ontario, $45,90; the municipal expenses in Ottawa are $439.95 ; the Canadian income tax is $84; which gives a total of $782.37. If there is any person here present who draws so large a salary as $5,000, and has a family, this is his annual charge.
Mr. Speaker, according to me, those statistical data deserve consideration. In the past, we have witnessed the coming of different kinds of immigrants, but they often came to do some farming for a month and then to enter our cities. It might be said that on an average only five per cent of the incoming and prospective immigrants are desirable individuals because nowadays it must be reckoned that European nations are keeping their best citizens and sending us only those who do not answer their purpose. These are people who do not earn $5,000 a year; therefore, as they are earning less, the country is liable to have to provide for so many more individuals. Those statistical data are certainly quite valuable and worthy of our utmost consideration.
New we might let in undesirables. By noting what is going on in our courts, we

might easily satisfy ourselves that what I am asserting is perfectly true. Taking into account the difference in the rates of exchange between Austria and Canada upon $35 or $40, for instance, one may get $2,000 worth in Austrian securities. These people are coming to this country and in the course of a single night they can reap what would be a small fortune in their own country, and even the expenses of their deportation are settled by Canada. It is most important that such a case should be seriously considered.
Although my resolution seems to bear the stamp of some radicalism, I shall admit that the Government should pay regard to an immigration actually and not in appearance only agricultural. I was reading lately the opinion upon immigration matters of a prominent citizen who manages in a splendid manner the affairs of the Canadian Pacific Railway; I mean Mr. Beatty. Who is Mr. Beatty? He is the president of a great corporation owning a vast railway system, a large fleet of ocean liners and who heads a company of shareholders earning enormous dividends. Therefore I shall grant that, as a business man, the more freight he will be able to get for his company, the larger will be its surplus. His advice is that of an interested person and we, the members of this Parliament, should lay it by and pay regard only to the general welfare of the country.
Now, before concluding my remarks, it is my desire to let the House know that I had no intention of offending any nationality, neither French, English, Austrian, Hebrew, nor others. I oppose with all my might that mode of reasoning according to which, when a cup is full to the brim, the way to prevent its overflowing is to pour more liquid into it; and I would willingly make a reservation in my resolution for those who would be acknowledged highly qualified for farming or industry, chiefly for farming. However, I do not accept the contention of the president of the Canadian Pacific Company, that we need mechanical experts, because we have all we want for the Angus or other shops; but we should let in the following:-foremen and captains of industry, which is quite another thing.
Mr. Speaker, I am confident of having entirely covered the ground of my resolution which states that the Government ought to put a stop to immigration from the standpoint of common sense and in the interest of public order. I am also confident of having shown clearly enough that the policy of the Government as to labour
[Mr. DeslBiUriens.l
matters is a downright camouflage; that the Labour Department should vanish out of sight as a department, and if the Government were willing to be frank, if they earnestly wished for the progress of the country, the amounts granted to that department ought to be given to agriculture or industry, chiefly to agriculture, as loans or credits judiciously apportioned.
I think my hon. friend the member for Prescott (Mr. Proulx) for agreeing to second this motion which made such a stir among the public, in the press and elsewhere, to such an extent that I would find every day in my letter box, correspondence about immigration and letters advising me in covert terms to withdraw my motion. If I am in parliament to-day it is a matter of conscience and patriotism which lead me here and not a question of money; and this being so, I sincerely believe that it was my duty to submit this matter to the House in the clearest possible way and with all the vigour I am capable of, in the interests of my constituents.


Mr. EDMOND PROULX (Prescott) :: Mr. Speaker, I am in accord with most of what has been said by my hon. friend from St. Mary (Mr. Deslauriers), but I would like to make certain reservations. At the conclusion of his remarks my hon. friend said he would not object to the admission into this country of a certain class of immigrants, especially those who would engage in farm work or settle on the land. But the present regulations of the Immigration Department permit the immigration into the country of farm labourers and domestic servants. We are not overburdened with this class of immigrants and I do not think we need anticipate any trouble through letting them come in. I am in accord with my hon. friend, however, in his desire to restrict the admission of the artisan class. There is much unemployment at present in the different cities and urban centres of this country, and that unemployment will become more serious if the present immigration restrictions are relaxed. I do not think there is a small town in this country which has not been affected during the last few months by unemployment conditions. We read in the press that thousands of persons of the artisan class are waiting in the European ports for the opportunity to come to this country. Well, I do not see why we should make our regulations less restrictive than those which the United States has applied to immigration into that country. Recently the United * States Government imposed very stringent

restrictions. I applied not long ago for permission for one of my electors to go back to the United States; he had lived there some years ago and had married an American. He could not, however, gain admission to the United States, in view of the restrictions imposed. I advise the Minister of Immigration (Mr. Calder) to follow the example of the United States in this regard and to protect our own citizens. The best way to protect our workers or artisans is to keep for them the labour that is available in Canada. We should not encourage the immigration of French or Belgian or English people into this country at present; they are needed in their own countries to go on the land and to assist in reconstruction, especially in France and Belgium. We should render the people of those countries a very bad service if we carried on a propaganda to cause many of their number to leave and come here. Most of those who want to come into Canada are of the artisan class. I would strongly encourage the admission of those who want to go on the land, or work for the farmers or accept employment as domestic servants. The hon. member for St. Mary has said that the president of the Canadian Pacific Railway company strongly advocated a policy of immigration, saying that it would be the salvation of the country and of the railway companies if we could increase our immigration. I am sure that the president of the Canadian Pacific Railway company had in his mind immigration of the settler class. That is what opened the West some years ago and created prosperity there. But unfortunately we do not get the same class of immigrants now, especially from Europe, as we got some years ago. If we admit thousands of persons of the artisan class who will not go on the land but will stay in the cities and urban centres, we shall aggravate the unemployment situation to the detriment of our own people. There is one town in my county with a population of 5,500. The main industry there is a pulp mill. Well, that industry had to close down a few days ago, and may be closed for some months, affecting the employment of some seven or eight hundred people. You can see, Mr. Speaker, what the condition is if there are many other towns in this country in the same position. I was in Toronto last week, and I believe that the unemployment situation there is very serious. If we admit into Canada any more persons of the artisan class, it will become much worse. I hope, therefore, that the Minister of Immigration will not relax his restrictions,
even if he is strongly urged to do it. I know there are some in this country-I do not know whether it is through generosity or tenderness of heart-who would like these restrictions relaxed so that a large number of artisans could gain admission into Canada. Well, we should protect our own people first; charity begins at home. Instead of being relaxed the restrictions should be made even more severe, at least for some time, until the unemployment situation becomes less acute. Having made these observations, I am pleased to second the motion of my hon. friend from St. Mary.


Mr. E. W. NESBITT (North Oxford) :: Mr. Speaker, I rise merely to ask the Minister of Immigration and Colonization (Mr. Calder)-if he is going to speak with regard to the resolution-if it would not be possible to have these proposed immigrants checked at the places where they originate instead of having them deported if they are not found satisfactory on their arrival in Canada. It must be a great hardship to these poor people to travel all the way across the ocean and then be rejected when they land in this country.
I have nothing particular to say with reference to the class of immigrants being allowed in, because I think the minister is perfectly alive to the situation in this country. As is suggested by my hon. friend (Mr. Proulx) we do not want in the cities and towns more artisans. We want men on the farms. In Ontario, at the present time, it is just as difficult this year as it was last year to get men to work on the farm; wages demanded last year by men who would work on the farm were more than the farmer could afford to pay and at the same time make a profit out of his business, and if wages were high last year, now that the prices of nearly all farm products have very materially decreased, I am quite sure that this year wages will be still more than the farmer can afford to pay.
I am not going to speak for the western farmer, because he can speak for himself better than I can, but I understand that farmers in the West paid wages as high as $10 and $12 a day last year for threshing and other farming operations. If that be the case, that is very much more than we paid in Ontario, and it must be that much more difficult for western farmers to stand. There is plenty of room in this country for certain classes of European farmers, such as those who have been successful in the United States, and who, I

believe, could be successful in this country. The type of immigrants that we do not want is the continual agitator who apparently was not satisfied with the country from which he came and who is less satisfied with the country to which he comes.


Mr. CLARK (Red Deer) :: Are there any of those in Woodstock?


Edward Walter Nesbitt: But very few. I am glad to state that in Woodstock we are a very peaceable community; there is no unemployment; everybody who wants to work has work to do, so that I am not speaking on account of any local troubles. I know that what I have already said is correct, namely, that we cannot get men on the farm this year at any lower wages than we did last year; in fact, we cannot get, in any measure, the help that is required on the farm. Many people think that anybody can work on a farm, but there never was a greater mistake. The man who is city-bred entirely takes a long time to be of any use on the farm. In my experience a man raised on a farm can learn very much more rapidly to make himself useful in an ordinary factory than the ordinary city-bred man can learn to make himself useful on a farm. The boys on the farm 

that goes into the old question of why boys leave the farm and I do not think I will touch that; I left the farm myself, and I am very pleased to get back on it any hour of the day or any day of the week that I can do so-


Mr. McMASTER:: Especially Sundays.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Especially Sundays.


Mr. JACOBS:: Is there a church there?


Edward Walter Nesbitt: We have enough people in the community to hold a small church meeting if that is necessary, but I am afraid I am not an adept at that.
I still think that, if it were possible, it would be better to stop these prospective immigrants at the port of embarkation than at the port of debarkation. I think also that there are numbers of European farmers who could well be brought out to this country and who would be useful on the land now. But it is not wise to encourage artisans to come to Canada because, at least at the present time, we have plenty of that class to fill up all the factories and manufacturing industries we have in this country, men who are thoroughly acquainted with the country and who know the kind of work that is to be done.

Another class that we could very readily absorb is what is called the domestic servant class. I think that is a wrong appellation; perhaps we should call them "maids of industry"-cooks are now called "dietitians," so that I think we could well call the others "maids of industry." We could absorb many of them if we could get the right class.
I do not think immigrants should be brought to this country and then dumped at the port of debarkation, such as Montreal, Quebec, Toronto or any other place. Somebody who is capable, who knows the country and its necessities, should be on hand to take charge of them there. If women were amongst the immigrants, a capable woman should be available who could look after these women on their arrival and not lose track of them until they were established in some way. I can imagine going to some foreign country about which I was totally uneducated and arriving there in the night-or in the morning, no matter when. With nobody to tell me what to do or where to go, I would be practically lost. I often feel very sorry for the bunches of immigrants you see around city stations who apparently are wandering around without any knowledge of what they are going to do or where they are going. I want to impress on the minister that these people should be taken care of from the time they land in Canada until they are properly established in whatever walk of life they want to get into. I hope the minister will take that into his serious consideration.


Samuel William Jacobs: Mr. Speaker, I should like to
draw the attention of the House to the wording of this resolution introduced by the hon. member for St. Mary division of Montreal. The resolution reads:
Whereas the question of unemployment In our large cities has become a serious problem; whereas the Government is going to study this question; whereas in Europe this social problem is just as great a menace as here and such being the case Canada is exposed to the risk of receiving more or less undesirable immigrants ; therefore be it resolved: That, in the opinion of this House, all immigration should be suspended until a normal condition of affairs is established.
In other words, he says as soon as a normal condition of affairs is established here, then Canada can receive all the more or less undesirable immigrants who are prepared to come.
Whereas in Europe this social problem is just as great a menace as here and such being the case Canada is exposed to the risk-

I am afraid my friend from St. Mary has not given this subject the attention it requires. I rather think he is looking at the question with spectacles which will not permit him to see further than the St. Mary division of Montreal. I feel that if he had had the experience which some of us have had in this matter of immigration, he would not have introduced this resolution. I am glad to think, however, that with the possible exception of himself and the hon. member from Prescott (Mr. Proulx), who supported the resolution, no one in the House is in favour of it. I may say that I myself have introduced a resolution directly negativing, if I may so call it, the resolution of my friend from St. Mary, but it appears that his resolution having come up before mine could be reached, I shall be debarred by the rules of the House from discussing my resolution this session. I had prepared myself with a certain amount of ammunition which I intended to direct to the seat of the Minister of Immigration and Colonization (Mr. Calder), but, fortunately for the House and the minister, this ammunition is not in the House at the moment, and consequently the minister will have to possess himself in patience until the matter comes up again.


Sir GEORGE FOSTER:: We are not in immediate danger.


Samuel William Jacobs: There is no immediate danger. I entirely agree with what my hon. friend from North Oxford (Mr. Nesbitt) said just a moment before he resumed his seat. I made a note of his remark, and it was this: "I know little or nothing about the subject."


Edward Walter Nesbitt: I did not say that.


Samuel William Jacobs: I have a note of it here; that is the way it reached me. I would go so far as to say that my friend from St. Mary is in exactly the same position as the hon. member for North Oxford.
The immigration question is a great national problem. It has been said only within the last few weeks that in the solution of our national problems immigration will play a most important part. We have it from the mouth of Mr. Beatty, the president of the Canadian Pacific Railway, that if our national roads are ever to be a success it will only be brought about by fostering proper immigration to this country. That 'seems only reasonable. Here is a land without people. How are three transcontinental railways to pay if we have not the people along the line of these roads? The question seems to me not to require
any discussion. We must have people if we are to make these roads pay. Yet we have gentlemen coming into this House and telling us that inasmuch as we have unemployment in one part of the country- because we have too many artisans in that part and too few in the other-therefore, we should suspend immigration, put a ban on it for a period of two years, and afterwards let down the bars and allow the tide of immigration to flow in its natural course. That, Sir, is impossible. If we discourage immigration by putting up the bars in that way, we are going to restrict it just when we need it. There may be a little unemployment in this country. I do not know what the figures of the Department of Labour show, but I fancy the condition is not serious. When I want some one to do work for me, I cannot find any one to do it.


Mr. CANNON:: They know you.


Samuel William Jacobs: I did not believe that I
was so well known to all the unemployed in the Dominion of Canada. What I wish to point out is that, simply because of some temporary unemployment in certain particular lines, we ought not go so far as to put up the bars against all kinds of immigration. Ever since I have been a member of this House I have been in favour of the open door with regard to immigration-the open door with, of course, certain modifications. I would not permit a single person to come into this country if he were undesirable. But what is an undesirable citizen? A man is not an undesirable because he has no money in his pocket. If that were so, there would be a very large number of respectable people in the country who would be undesirable. Very often a man is desirable just because he has no money in his pocket, because that condition provokes ambition. Where a man comes to this country without any money, that ought to be no reason for debarring him. As a matter of fact, a very large percentage, I venture to say perhaps 90 to 95 per cent, of the people in this country who came here as immigrants came just because they were poverty-stricken-if they had been well-to-do in thier own country, they would not come to Canada. What would there be to induce a man to come here if he were well-off in his own country? They come here in order to bring up their families under the better conditions that we provide in this country; they come because similar conditions do not obtain in Europe. Yet when these people come we have all kinds of annoying restrictions

placed in their way. We have certain Orders in Council which were put into effect last fall, just previous to the winter season setting in, which further restricted immigration to this country. Only last week these Orders in Council were continued for an indefinite period. I would point out to the House that these restrictions were imposed in the absence of my friend the Minister of Immigration and Colonization. Now that he is back, when he finds out what has been done in his absence, he wil probably see to it that these restrictions are removed. It is curious that during the entire time he was here, not one step was taken to continue these restrictions, but when he was called away to the West the restrictions were imposed.


Mr. MACKENZIE:: He left instructions to that effect.


Samuel William Jacobs: I do not think he did,
because I happen to know the minister very well. I have had business with his department for a considerable time, and I can testify to the intimate knowledge which he has concerning the whole immigration problem. I have from time to time brought to his^ attention cases of great hardship in the matter of immigrants landing on our shores, and I must say that he has brought to the solution of the cases which I placed before him in regard to immigrants a great deal of sympathy and a very intimate knowledge of the whole immigration problem. I know that at heart the minister would really like to see these Orders in Council and all the other restrictive regulations reduced to the minimum.
My hon. friend from St. Mary cited with a great deal of satisfaction this afternoon the opinion of Sir Andrew McPhail. 1 would like to ascertain from my hon. friend whether he is in agreement with all the opinions of Sir Anderw McPhail upon other subjects as well as immigration. Some one has said that necessity makes strange bed-fellows. Still, I was surprised to see my friend from St. Mary in agreement with Sir Andrew ' McPhail even on the matter of immigration. I remember some speeches delivered by Sir Andrew during the war. Is my hon. friend from St. Mary prepared to accept the views of Sir Andrew McPhail regarding the war? And if Sir Andrew was wrong in his views of the war, does not my hon. friend think he may also be wrong in these immigration suggestions of his? I would rather have the view of a man like Mr. Beatty, who intimately knows the whole question, than that of Sir

Andrew McPhail, who, although he may be a very estimable gentleman, is at best a mere doctrinaire in the matter of immigration and is in the same class as my hon. friend from North Oxford (Mr. Nesbitt), and my hon. friend from St. Mary. My hon. friend from Prescott (Mr. Proulx) stated that the restrictions in the United States were very much more severe than those in Canada. Well, I do not think they are. I had occasion some time ago, when discussing the question of immigration, to remark that the United States makes a rule to-day and we follow it to-morrow; or, to put it differently, they take the snuff and we do the sneezing. That is the unfortunate part of the whole situation, Mr. Speaker. The United States and Canada cannot be compared in the matter of immigration. They have been taking millions of people into their country for a period of a hundred years, and in the report published only last week by the United States Department of Immigration it was stated that during the last century 33,000,000 people had entered the United States from Europe. To-day the descendants of those people constitute the United States. What are we doing? Absolutely nothing. While the Americans have over 110,000,000 people in their country, we, I venture to think, have no more than 8,000,000. So that we cannot possibly compare conditions in the two countries, and people make a mistake when they presume for a moment to do so. What kind of people come to this country?- people who want to improve their condition, and those who have not the means to set up in Europe on their own account. And there is another class of people who come to this continent, those who are obliged to leave their own countries in Europe by reason of religious and social persecution. Now, this country, it seems to me, should be the haven of rest for people of that kind, and we ought to have our doors wide open for all those who flee from persecution, social and otherwise, in European countries. During the war a great wave of sympathy went out from Canada and the United States to those people in Europe who were ground down under the heel of autocracy and other forms of persecution. At that time we were ready to say to them: "Come unto us all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and we will give you rest." But so soon as the war is over we close our doors against them and say:	For our
own protection, we will not permit you to enter. When speaking on the subject of immigration a year or two ago, I related

a story which, I think, was apropos to the matter under discussion. It was a story told by a Salvation Army officer of a man whom he saw in London piloting poor cripples from one side of the street to the other, jumping from one little island, as he put it, to another. The Salvation Army officer was touched by what he supposed to be the charity of the man, and expressed his pleasure accordingly. The man replied: Why, it is not a matter of charity. You see, I have no shirt on and I carry these people from one side of the street to the other to warm my back. Now, Mr. Speaker, that is exactly what we want these people to do in this country. We want them to come here to warm our backs, metaphorically speaking; because, God knows, we need it badly. If we go on much longer with our merchant marine and our national railways in their present condition, we certainly shall need someone to warm our backs, because we shall not have a shirt to our name.
My hon. friend from St. Mary, you will no doubt judge, Mr. Speaker, cannot have a very heavy foreign population in his division. I think that is a reasonable conclusion from his remarks; and I suppose, per contra, I must have a very heavy foreign population in my own division. But I trust that I am able to look at this question with a larger vision. If I felt for a moment that the advocacy of admitting large numbers of proper immigrants into this country constituted a danger to the country, I care not how many foreign or other people I have in my division, I would not advocate it. But it is because I consider that it is entirely in the interests of the country that I am in favour of the widest possible immigration, consistent, of course, with proper safeguards respecting desirability, etc., from the health and other points of view. My hon. friend from St. Mary and also the hon. member for Prescott, were evidently not aware of the fact that we have at present on the statute book, and in Orders in Council and other regulations, just such restrictions as they are asking should now be imposed by this Government. For instance, we have a regulation to the effect that no person shall be permitted to come into this country unless he is travelling from the place of his birth on a through ticket to Canada. If he comes from some of the Balkan hills where it is impossible for him to purchase a through ticket from that place to Canada, and he purchases his ticket in Antwerp, or Havre, or Liverpool, he is turned away from our shores immediately on his arrival. Surely
that is a pretty severe restriction. Well, that is one of the regulations which the Immigration Department has imposed. Where it is an absolute physical impossibility for a man to purchase a through ticket, no matter what his qualifications for citizenship may be, and no matter what sum of money he may have in his possession, he is unable to land here because he was unfortunately not in a position to see to it that the Canadian Pacific Railway, or the White Star line, or some other company, had ticket offices in the town of his birth. It will he for the Minister of Immigration and Colonization (Mr. Calder) when he replies to me, to say what it is that prompted the department to put into force a regulation of that kind. To my mind it is like the peace of God-it passeth all understanding. Then we have another regulation to the effect that no person may land in this country unless he has in his possession the sum of $250. If he has $249.99 he is looked upon as an undesirable citizen and is not permitted to land on our shores. No investigation is made as to whether he is likely to become a good citizen; nothing is done to find out whether he has relatives in this country who are able and willing to look after him; no investigation can be made by the officers at the port of entry, because the regulation states that he must have $250. If he has $250 he can land, and when that money is exhausted for living expenses-and it can last only a month or two at the most-then this man may become a public charge. But the Government feels that it has done its duty when it has seen that he has $250. Why, the man may have relatives in this country worth half a million dollars who are willing to give bonds that he will not become a public charge; but all the Government cares about is to see that he has this required sum of $250. They pay no attention to the circumstances of the man's relatives who may have come out to this country previously and done well here. Now, I say that these rules are silly, that they are foolish, and that it is not in keeping with the dignity of a country like Canada to enforce them. It is true that we have a rule which says that farmers and domestic servants can enter the country freely. But what is there to ensure that if a man enters Canada as a farmer he will go on the farm? I venture to say that fifty per cent of the people who were on farms twenty-five or thirty years ago are to-day residents of the large cities. I

venture to say that the domestic servants who came here fifteen or twenty years ago are no longer domestic servants. What are we going to do about it? How can we guarantee that a person who was a farmer on the other side of the Atlantic ocean is going to remain a farmer when he comes to this country? How can we say that a person who was a domestic servant in some European country is going to be a domestic servant here? How can we say that a man who was an artisan in the Old Land is not going to become a farmer here? How can we make watertight compartments in this country and say to immigrants: "If you declare you are a farmer we will let you in to go on the farm, but if, on the other hand, you declare that you are an artisan, even though you are willing to go on the farm, we refuse to permit you to enter the country." I say again, Mr. Speaker, all these rules require to be revamped. We ought to appoint a commission to investigate the whole question of immigration inito Canada.


Andrew Ross McMaster: Not a commission.


Samuel William Jacobs: The reason I suggested a commission is because I know that such an idea will appeal to the Government. They may feel it is something that will cause the whole matter to be shelved and may thus readily grant it.


Mr. CASGRAIN:: We do not want to shelve the question.


Samuel William Jacobs: We will not shelve the question. I hope it will come to a vote this afternoon in order that we may take the opinion of the House as to whether the resolution of my hon. friend from St. Mary is in the interest of the country. What pleased me particularly was the assertion of my hon. friend from St. Mary that he was making this resolution entirely on his personal responsibility. Well, it is such an illiberal motion, it is a motion so contrary to all ideals of freedom, that I would rather have expected it to come from an hon. member opposite. I am somewhat surprised that my hon. friend, who calls himself a Liberal, who votes Liberal, and who, I trust, thinks as a Liberal, should introduce such an illiberal resolution as this;
What was it that made this country prosperous from 1896 to 1911? I submit, Mr. Speaker, that it was the immigration policy introduced by the Laurier government and carried out by it up to the very moment

that it went out of power. I had occasion to say before in this House that Sir Clifford Sifton is largely responsible for the tide of immigration which came into this country after 1896. We may have different opinions and views respecting the character of Sir Clifford Sifton but I must say this-that at no time in the history of Canada, with the possible exception of the present Minister of Immigration and Colonization, did we have a man who viewed the question of immigration so clearly as did Sir Clifford Sifton; and we ought to consider ourselves under a heavy delft of gratitude to that man for having clearly seen what was to the interest of this country, and put into force an Act to forward our immigration policy which did so much to people the West and to bring prosperity to Canada. If we adopt such a resolution as this we are going to face a most serious crisis. I warn my hon. friend the Minister of Immigration and Colonization that he ought to go slowly in the matter of restrictions on immigration. There are in Europe to-day thousands and tens of thousands, yes millions, of people who would become desirable immigrants in this country; but once you make them understand and believe that Canada is only for a certain class, that although this country is one which can accommodate one hundred and fifty millions, it is going to be made a stamping ground for seven or eight millions merely, then you turn the eyes and thoughts of those desirable immigrants elsewhere, and we lose them for all time. This resolution, although it has been introduced by my hon. friend from St. Mary, who knows practically nothing of the whole question, will have served a very good purpose by promoting the present debate, and more especially if it should elicit from the Minister of Immigration and Colonization some tangible, concrete views on this highly important question.


Mr. GEORGE BOYCE (Carleton) :: I
have listened with a great deal of pleasure to the hon. member who has just taken his seat. I regret very much that that hon. gentleman is not a farmer, because, judging from the opinions he has expressed, he would make a good one. I have heard a good many speeches in this House but I must say I do not think I ever listened to one which contains more sound common sense than the speech which my right hon. friend delivered this afternoon. There is no doubt that immigration is one of the

great questions to which we should give our most thoughtful consideration at the present time. In the great West there are boundless acres lying uncultivated for the want of men to till them. In New Ontario what do we see?-millions of acres, waiting for settlers to come and cultivate the land. The need is great for desirable immigrants to enter this vast country of ours and help to increase its production. For my part I do not see why we should place such a serious handicap as now exists on respectable persons who wish to enter this country and settle here. Why should an honest man who is willing to work, and who would probably make a better living than he did in his former home, be hindered from coming into this country? I think I am safe in saying that there are hundreds and thousands-I might almost say millions- of men in the Old Land who would be only too glad to be given the opportunity of coming to Canada in order to work here and earn an honest livelihood. I have had letters from two or three men now who are there and who would like to get back to Canada. They lived here before the war broke out, and then went across the ocean to do their part. After peace came they remained in the Old Land, but although they would like to return to Canada they have not the means to carry out their desire.
I am a farmer and speak with some little knowledge of agriculture and its needs. In the county which I represent I believe employment could be found for at least one thousand qualified men in the course of a few days. In the farming industry we have been labouring under all sorts of difficulties for years, trying to get along with only about one-quarter of the labour needed, and yet we know there are any number of men available for settlement in Canada if they can only be brought here. We often hear it said that in the cities there are great numbers of idle men. I have not the least doubt that such is the case. I have visited this city myself trying to get men to work in harvest time but without success, although there seemed to be any number of persons without any visible occupation. I know of one case where a man was asked to take a place on the farm and demanded $5 a day and his board. When this was promised him he said: "Will you take my two chums?" The farmer replied in the negative and the man then said: "Oh, well, I do not want to work on a farm." That is the type of man that is idle in our large cities. Such men as this do not want to work. I have
been brought up in this country and have an intimate knowledge of the conditions here, and I say that no man who is willing to work need experience hard times-he can always get sufficient employment to keep him going and yield a little to spare.
I trust that no serious monetary handicap against desirable immigration into Canada will be enforced.
How are we going to amount to anything if we stop immigration? We have heard several references to the United States. Would there be a population of 110,000,000 in the United States to-day if there had been any restriction on immigration there? Not a bit of it. If we put restrictions on immigration how long will it be before we have a population of even 50,000,000? We want men who are willing to work. It deos not make any difference whether they are farm hands or mechanics, if they are willing to work they will always find plenty to do. That is the type of men we want,, and I hope we will do everything to encourage such men to help in the upbuilding of Canada, so that we may become one of the great nations of the earth and our land will be a blessing to millions who will make their homes here in years to come.


Mr. J. A. ROBB (Chateauguay-Hunting-don) :: Mr. Speaker, the pith of the resolution presented by my hon. friend from St. Mary (Mr. Deslauriers) is that Canada should suspend all immigration until normal conditions are established. In my judgment if this resolution was adopted, and the Government based their policy upon it, my hon. friend would be helping to delay the very conditions that he wishes to bring about, because the restriction of immigration would go far to retard the reestablishment of normal conditions in this country.
Our city friends have for some years been clamouring for a reduction in the cost of living and in rents, and they complain bitterly that foodstuffs and rentals have become dearer year by year. But what has contributed more to the advancement of rents in the cities, to the detriment of the workers, than the action of the workers themselves? They are not willing to work more than eight hours a day; but, after all, that would not be so
4	p.m. bad if they were willing to give a good eight hours' work. However, the rule apparently is to do as little work as possible, and this in very large measure is responsible for the higher rents which they have to pay. While they are clamouring for a reduction in the cost

of foodstuffs, apparently our city friends forget that their advocacy of shorter hours and increased pay has taken away from the farms the people who by their work on the land would have contributed to a fair reduction of the cost of living. And our city friends by their advocacy of higher pay and shorter hours for railway workers have still further helped to increase the cost of transportation of the products of the farms to the cities. As a result, to-day we have dissatisfaction both in the cities and in the country, because there is a shortage of labour in the latter and a surplus of it in the former, and the trouble is that many of the men who were attracted to the cities by higher pay and shorter hours are disinclined to work.
I have no quarrel with my city friends for wishing to bar immigration completely, but, representing an agricultural constituency, I do not wish to see this resolution passed without saying to the minister in charge (Mr. Calder) and the Government that in my judgment what Canada requires to-day more than anything else is more and better immigration. If workers in the cities are to have cheaper foodstuffs and lower rents, Canada must produce a surplus of exportable products to meet our national obligations, and the only way to stimulate production is to encourage men to come to this country who are willing to work. I am quite ready to admit that there are a sufficient number of artisans in this country if they were only willing to work. And I am not urging upon the Minister of Immigration to make it easier for foreign agitators to enter Canada. Indeed, I am satisfied that even old Mother England should keep her agitators at home. We do not want them here, but we do want men and women who are willing to work, and therefore I do not think we would be acting wisely in placing a money restriction on the right type of immigrants. Perhaps many of us in this House would not be here had there been a money restriction placed upon the earlier settlers, for many of our parents came here with very little money; all they had was their health and their willingness to work. They did work, and their industry helped to make this country what it is to-day-attractive to those from overseas who are seeking to enter our ports. Therefore I urge upon the minister the adoption of a policy that will bring to this country all immigrants who are willing to work.
From what I read in the press recently it occurs to me that some gentlemen who 
are very closely associated with the Government apparently have not much confidence in its immigration policy. I noticed that recently in the city of Winnipeg there was formed what is known as the Western Canada Colonization Society, and, strange to say, instead of placing at its head the Minister of Immigration, who is himself a western man and should know the needs of the West, they selected as president a gentleman from Hamilton, Mr. Robert Hobson, one of the directors of our national railway system. The reason for the formation of that society was stated to be that, in the opinion of its organizers, Canada must have increased immigration in order to secure greater production, and instead of urging upon the Government to extend its immigration policy I gather from the newspaper reports that these gentlemen say: We are going to take this work out of the hands of the immigration authorities and ourselves see that the work is done right. It is aparent that they are not satisfied with the methods of the Immigration Department. The managing director of the association is General McRae, who did such splendid work in the war, and it has been left to him to go out and stimulate immigration. It seems to me that when the minister replies he should tell us whether the newspaper reports are correct, and whether those gentlemen are to send their agents throughout the British Isles and other parts of Europe in search of suitable immigrants, instead of leaving the work in the hands of the Immigration Department.
For these reasons, Mr. Speaker, I am not prepared to suport the resolution presented by my hon. friend for St. Mary and so well argued by him from his point of view. I say in all frankness to my hon. friend from St. Mary that if the city people wish to secure lower rentals and cheaper foodstuffs, the best thing he can do for Canada is to withdraw his resolution and allow the Government to proceed along sound, sane lines as was the case in the years from 1896 until 1911, when we were so prosperous, when we had immigration of anywhere from 200,000 to 350,000 each year. That is the policy we require for Canada-not the restriction or suspension of immigration.


Mr. W. G. McQUARRIE (New Westminster) :: Mr. Speaker, I think there is
a good deal to be said in favour of the resolution, the effect of which is to recommend to the Government that all immigration shall be suspended until conditions

again become normal. We all have to admit that conditions are not normal at present, and it seems to me that they are going to become worse before they get better. Factories and industries all over the country are closing down; we hear that every day, and a great many men are out of employment. I was in Hamilton during the Easter holidays and I heard there that a lot of the Hamilton factories were closing down and that a great many men would be out of employment. Included in the institutions which are closing down, I think, is the International Harvester Company, a big concern which employed 3,500 men. Now, we have bread lines in nearly all the cities. I know that in Vancouver a great many men are at present out of employment, men who want work but cannot get it. I do not agree with the hon. member for Huntingdon (Mr. Robb) that the unemployed of Canada are men who do not want to work; there are a great many men who cannot get work. That being the case, why should we bring into the country a lot of men to make conditions worse? Because that is what the result would be. The great argument seems to be that the farmers are unable to get help. Well, I think the time will come, and come very soon, when the unemployed in the cities may be very glad to go back on the farm, and when that time comes you will have lots of men, and good men, to work on the farms.
When I was coming up from Hamilton I met one of the men who had been thrown out of employment through the closing down of a factory in that city. I got into conversation with him. I do not know what his name is, but I ascertained that he was one of the Princess Pats, one of the men who came back with the remnant of that famous regiment not so very long ago and marched along the streets of Ottawa; one of the regiment of which we are all so proud. That man said he had been working in a factory where threshing machines were manufactured; that the concern had been getting no business for some time and had had to close down. I asked him what he was going to do. He said: I am going to a farm here where I have secured employment. I believe that will be the case with a great many men; when they cannot get any other work they will have to go on the farm. I believe conditions will right themselves and that we have in Canada sufficient men to look after all the work which is required to be done on the farms.
The matter of the need for domestic servants has been referred to during the course of the discussion. I believe it would be advisable to encourage the coming to this country of domestic servants, because there is a shortage of that class of labour in Canada. If a good, capable girl comes into the country, in a short time she gets married, and I believe we should encourage that kind of thing if they are the right kind of people.
It has been said also that the solution of our railroad problem, which is a most unfortunate one, of course, is to throw open the doors to immigration and let everybody in. That course has been urged by men like Mr. Beatty, of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, and the hon. member from Marquette (Mr. Crerar). Well, that may later be the proper policy; when conditions right themselves it will, I suppose, be proper for the railroad companies to do as they did before and bring people to this country by the thousands and tens of thousands. But I do not believe that time has come; I do not believe that the bringing of immigrants into Canada by the wholesale will help out our railroad situation. Before you throw open the doors, I would say, get rid of the bread lines- which involves practically what the mover of the resolution (Mr. Deslauriers) suggests, namely, the return of conditions to normal. I am not a pessimist, by any means; I believe that we have a great country and that a great future lies before us. But we should be very careful not to make conditions worse during the next few years.
The United States is restricting immigration, and no doubt a large number of people who are refused entrance into that country will try to come into Canada. Something has been said about the policy of the late Liberal Administration, and Sir Clifford Sifton's name was mentioned, great credit being given to him for bringing so many people into the country. But I am afraid that under that policy a great many people of the wrong kind were brought in. I do not think that the country gained anything by the admission into Canada of people like the Doukhobors, for instance,- I mention simply that one class; there are others. These people do not do anv <~~'d to the country, so far as I have been able to discover. They have their own settlements; they make money for themselves; they cultivate the land, it is true, but they remain more or less a foreign settlement in our midst. I do not think that is what we want; we do not want men who, when we

get into any kind of trouble, will say that they are conscientious objectors and that they are not going to take any part in the defence of the country. We want people who will make good Canadians, who will perform the duties of Canadians, and who will help to make Canada the country which it ought to be.
I stated that there was a good deal to be said for this resolution, but I do not wish it to be inferred that I would support such a drastic proposition as this. I believe rather that the policy which the Government has adopted, of the very strictest kind of supervision of people who are trying to get into Canada, should be followed out. Such people should be examined in every possible way. I quite agree that it is not sufficient to qualify them that they should possess the sum of $250 or any definite amount of money; they should be the right kind of people, and the Government should examine them very strictly in order to find out whether that is the case or not. I would allow in, as the Government is doing, domestic servants and farm labourers. It is quite true that when you let in a farm labourer, you cannot be at all sure that that man is going to stay on the farm, but a certain number of them will do so. They have the farming instinct in them, and if they cannot get employment in other lines, they will go on the farm. I want to help the farmers; there are many farmers in my constituency, and there is a certain amount of room for men who will go on the land, particularly in the West. Let in domestic servants; let in farmers; but be very careful, though, about the class of people that you let in to be farmers. The mere fact that a man has been a farmer in some European country, to my mind, does not altogether qualify him as a proper citizen of Canada.
Some hon. members, in speaking of the need for farm help, have, perhaps, to a certain extent, exaggerated the situation. There are in this country people to work on the farms, provided that you can induce them to do so. If a man is out of work and will not go on a farm, there must be something wrong either with the man or with the treatment that he receives when he goes *n the farm to work. Something can be done to improve conditions on farms so as to make them more attractive for men who might be expected to work on them. I am, unfortunately, not a farmer, and possibly I have not a great deal of information about the way in which farm labourers are treated; but it seems to me

that they are more or less turned out in the backyard to live; that they are not given proper accommodation, and that they are not treated exactly as they should be in more respects than one. The time is coming when the farmer will have to get down to the eight-hour day, and while some hon. members may smile at that, things are changing; in other lines of industry, the eight-hour day has had to be adopted, and I do not see why farm labouring should not be considered in exactly the same way as labouring at any other kind of work.
This resolution should not pass, but the Government should carry on the policy, which the minister has stated as reported in the press, of the very strictest supervision of immigration for some time to come.


Mr. J. M. DOUGLAS (Strathcona) :: Mr. Speaker, the question of immigration, to my mind, is one of the greatest questions confronting the people of Canada at the present time. At the outset let me say that I have not the slightest sympathy with the resolution propounded by the hon. member for St. Mary's division of Montreal (Mr. Deslauriers). Some facts with regard to the difficulties of admittance of settlers into this country under the present immigration regulations were set forth very clearly by the hon. member for George Etienne Cartier (Mr. Jacobs) and I agree entirely with every statement he made in that regard. In the province from which I come we can accommodate millions of immigrants. The previous speaker (Mr. McQuarrie) stated that, under the regime of Sir Clifford Sifton there came into this country a certain kind of immigration which, in his judgment, was not in the best interest of Canada. He mentioned the class of Doukhobors. Personally, I have no knowledge of the Doukhobors; but I presume, in his classification of Doukhobors, he also included other residents of Austria and Russia who were of the same type, but Who do not hold the same religious convictions which the Doukhobors hold.
In Alberta, we have a large number of foreign-speaking settlers who are now Canadian citizens, men who came from Austria, from Russia, and some from Germany. In spite of any criticism which may have been made as to the immigration policy which was put into effect in 1897 or thereabouts, I make the statement in this House that that immigration policy was the foundation of the success of this country, and that Alberta and the other western provinces

have profited greatly by the settlement of those people on our fertile lands. The regulations in vogue to-day contain so many restrictive measures that a great injustice is being perpetrated on people, particularly 'from certain sections of Europe, coming into this country. Those people, in many instances, are relatives of people living in Western Canada at the present time, who are progressive, well-to-do people, and who are prepared to take the chances of seeing that those people do not become charges on the country. I have had, under my personal observation, many cases of former Austrian citizens, former Russian citizens, former Polish citizens, now living in this country, who are quite prepared to give a bond, if necessary, to the Government that their relatives will not be a charge on the public of this country if they are allowed admittance. But they cannot get in, and yet we see other types of people coming into Canada who are not in the same class whatever as settlers, who are not under any circumstances to be regarded as being of as great value to the country as some of those people whose entry into this country has been prohibited by regulation.
We have a tremendous transportation problem on our hands; we have tremendous resources undeveloped; we have a huge national debt, and if we are ever going to get out of the mire, we must have the people. In my judgment the $250 qualification does not represent the value of an immigrant in the slightest degree. If I might be personal, I might cite the case of my father who came to this country in 1853 with one sovereign in his pocket, and who had to make his way in a country where the advantages at that time were not nearly as great as they are to-day. His case is only one of thousands This country was built up by men of that kind. If we are going to restrict and hamper this class of people we are not going to have a country at all.
Hon. gentlemen have referred to what the United States is doing, but the United States cannot be compared with us at the present time. They have in the neighbourhood of 110,000,000 people, while we have only a paltry 8,000,000 or 9,000,000. We have as large an arable country as they have, yet we are putting up the bars against possible assets in the form of hard-working industrious people who will make this country a place that we shall all be proud to live in. I am entirely in favour of the bars being thrown down to a great extent; at all events, more than they are at the
present time. Give us a policy that will bring the most progressive and strongest type of immigrants to this country, and I have no fear as to what the results will be in the future.


Mr. FERNAND RINFRET (St. James, Montreal):: (Translation.) Mr. Speaker, as this motion may go to a vote, I wish to address the House though very briefly, on the subject, if only to qualify my stand in reference to it.
I must first congratulate the member from St. Mary's (Mr. Deslauriers) for having brought about this debate and this independantly of what he had to say, and I should like also to congratulate him for having opened it in French, since this permits some of the members from the province of Quebec to follow it in their own language. I hope that the minister in charge of the debate will not think it a lack of courtesy if I continue in the same language as that used by the member from St. Mary's, since the arguments on the debate have been offered in such profusion in English that he has certainly been able to form his opinion without having to hear in detail that which I wish to say. I will add though, that the Government is but imperfectly represented in this debate, since, while it is mainly a question of immigration that has been raised, it is at the same time one of labour. Once more we are shown the proof of the absurd position of the present Government which has in the Senate some of the ministers who are at the head of the most important departments, notably that department among all others which should be represented in the democratic House, the lower House, the House of those elected by the people," the department of labour. But I hope that upon this side of the House we have voices powerful enough to make themselves heard even in the richly decorated hall of the Upper House.
I agree with a good part of what has been said by my friend the member from St. Mary's who shares with me the distinction of representing one of the divisions of Canada's metropolis, and who is my neighbour on the left in the city of Montreal. I also agree with the part of what has been said by my neighbour on the right, the member from Georges-Etienne-Cartier (Mr. Jacobs), and it is an odd circumstance that though I am geographically situated between them, I should be called upon to take a stand which is not entirely that of either of them.

The member from St. Mary's maintains that the labour situation is such that all immigration should be suspended. The member from Georges Etienne-Cartier on his part answers, " It is true that the situation of labour is difficult enough, but nevertheless we should continue to open wide our doors." It appeafs to me, Mr. Speaker, that it should be possible to find in a treatise on architecture the contrivance of an aperture which be neither the dark closed grill of my hon. friend on my left, so to speak, nor the wide-open door of the member from Georges-Etienne-Cartier.
It is rather remarkable that the member from St. Mary's, while pretending to treat the immigration question as a whole, contents himself with presenting the arguments which have to do with the problem of unemployment from the labourer's point of view. It did not occur to him that one of the ways of solving the problem of unemployment in the towns is to increase the population in the country districts, for the larger the rural population, the greater is the need for articles manufactured in the towns. A community after all is like a person, it must be fed. But there are certain foods which suit this person and others which are distasteful to him, and if a diet of overfeeding (which I suspect my hon. friend from Georges-Etienne-Cartier of wishing to prescribe) would not agree just now with the Canadian people, I do not believe that we would be justified in exposing the community to starvation by cutting off the supply of food which it needs. For who can deny that up to a certain point we need immigration in Canada? The member from St. Mary's says that he does not wish an indiscriminate invitation to our shores extended to all would-be immigrants, but it seems to me that he falls into the opposite danger, which is to prevent ali, without distinction, from coming in. If the motion is not at fault in its premises, if it be true, as he has so ably shown with the science and eloquence which gained for him the support of the most thickly populated county of the Dominion, I really believe that we have unemployment in our cities, and that this constitutes a grave problem. He adds that the Government purposes to study this question. This is also true, in the exact terms in which he puts it. The Government, alas, purposes all sorts of things and then does nothing further about them! It is true that a social upheaval exists in Europe, and that on this side we are exposed to having undesirable immigrants. All this, from my point of view, is 
quite true. But I am forced to disagree with my hon. friend from St. Mary's, when he asks that immigration be completely suspended, though that does not mean that I accept in their entirety the views of my hon. friend from George-Etienne-Cartier.
In fact, we know that in his conclusions the hon. member for St. Mary's has allowed it to be understood that he is willing to modify to a certain extent his conclusions; and he admitted that there might be immigrants who would become excellent citizens. It is therefore easy to see that we can come to an understanding. We must therefore content ourselves with asking the Government to exercise a reasonable control over the immigration that presents itself at our doors. This is what is done by our neighbours of the United States. I do not wish to prolong this discussion- I have here a very interesting compilation from The Literary Digest, on the subject of immigration to the United States, in which is explained, by extracts from different American papers, how they mean to proceed in that country. In the United States, though it is a very populous country, already having 110 million inhabitants, it is not the intention to stop immigration, because it is admitted that even in that thickly peopled country, certain elements from European or other sources may be needed. It is all the more so, Mr. Speaker, in Canada, where we are only 8 millions; where we have to face immense problems; where we have, for instance, the problem of State-owned railways-a problem which can only be solved as it seems by adding to the population of the country in years to come-where we have a heavy war-debt which will be reduced if our population increases. If this tax is so much per head to-day, it is evident that when the population is 16 millions it will be reduced by 50 per cent. Unless the Government persist in increasing the debt by their extravagance, but, notwithstanding the Government's great aversion to go before the people, we know very well that there cannot be a longer delay than fifteen or sixteen months. We must have a " back to the land " policy, and I believe that the member from St. Mary's will admit that in the increasing of the rural population lies a remedy-I do not say the only remedy, for no single remedy can solve a complex problem-for the evil of unemployment in the towns however would certainly disappear with reference to foreign immigration, I would like to add a word. I declare in all sincerity before this House,

that there are different "European elements the incorporating of which would be a distinct gain to us. I would like to mention some who have become Canadian citizens and are worthy of our attention, for instance, the Syrians. Those who are familiar with Montreal, particularly the east end, know that they are easily assimilated; that they readily learn not only French but English, that they are industrious, and become merchants, not labourers. We have in Montreal, on Notre Dame St. east, and in other parts of the town, not only in the constituency of St. James, but in other constituencies, a Syrian population carrying on business along sound and profitable lines and constituting an immigration eminently desirable. Nevertheless I know, from having talked with them, that most of these Syrians came into the country with less than $250 which the Government now exacts on arrival.
As the hon. member from Georges-Etienne-Cartier (Mr. Jacobs) strongly put it just now, it is not the rich, it is not those who are comfortably off at home, who emigrate; those who leave their own country are the ones who seek better conditions than are possible for them at home. I do not wish to discuss in all its details this particular restriction which the Government imposes upon immigration, but I would like to simply show in a general way, and to remain within the bounds of this afternoon's discussion, that this question is very complex, and that it is very difficult to settle it by arrangements of a special character. This is why, in the best of spirit, and because my hon. friend from St. Mary's (Mr. Deslauriers) is one of the best Liberals I know, that I would suggest that he further develop his view of which he gave us a glimpse in the last sentences of his speech. In these he admitted that if it were necessary to maintain a barrier against all immigrants who might be a cause of social disaggregation, or of overbidding on the labour market, a door must nevertheless be left open not necessarily wide open, but it must be left ajar for a certain class of immigrants whom we need in our rural distracts.
Personally, I wish to say that I would gladly vote for a resolution along these lines, but I would be very sorry indeed to vote against that of the hon. member for St. Mary's should it remain exactly in its present form.


Mr. DONALD SUTHERLAND (Oxford South):: After listening attentively to the
speeches delivered on this resolution, I cannot help expressing the regret I feel, that it is rather unfortunate that the vision of some of those who have addressed the House does not extend beyond the borders of their own constituencies. The resolution reads in part:
Whereas the question of unemployment In our large cities has become a serious problem .... therefore be it resolved: That, in the opinion of this House, all immigration should be suspended until a normal condition of affairs is established.
The large cities, it seems, are the only points to be considered, and all the other sections of the community, and the interests of the people in general, are to be lost sight of. One almost imagines, from the remarks that have been made upon the resolution, that the people of Canada and the people of the world at large ought to be in a normal condition to-day. It would be strange indeed, after the world-wide convulsion that has taken place, if there were not an unsettled state of affairs in many parts of the world, and in many sections of our own community. The conditions that prevailed during the war were entirely different from what they are today, and were in no small measure responsible for those unsettled conditions which the mover of the resolution referred to as existing at present in the large industrial centres. We heard a great deal during the war about profiteers, and the charge of profiteering was frequently hurled at a certain class of people. I question, however, whether any section of the community are altogether free from this offence, and many of those people who to-day are out of employment in the large cities are in my opinion not free from this charge. It is true there has been a great influx of people from all parts of the country into the large industrial centres, where wages during the war were higher than they have ever been in the past. In the manufacturing of munitions and other necessary war material, our people have congregated in these centres and now, owing to the cessation of hostilities, are to-day without the emp'oy-ment which they had during the years of the war. I venture to say that there was never a time in the history of Canada when labour was so necessary as it is at the present time. It is the only thing upon which we can rely to pull us out of the



difficult position in which we are placed. True, it may he impossible for some people to get employment in the trades and industries in which they had been previously engaged; but if they are out of employment to-day it is largely because they will not do the work which is to be done and which must be done before we shall be able to get back to a normal state. The mover of the resolution would bar all immigration into this country. Well, there is a certain class of immigrants whom I would not permit to come here at any time or under any conditions. But just now there is a certain class of people who are anxious to come to Canada, and I believe they ought to receive consideration at the hands of the Government. If you wait until you absorb all the elements that we find in the large cities to-day, then you will wait a long time; you will wait until those desirable settlers who are eager to come to Canada have gone to some other country. There are in Great Britain to-day immense numbers of men and women who are anxious to come to Canada and make this country their home. But some one says: If you bring these people here they must go on the land, and what assurance have you that they will remain there if you permit them to come in? A few hours ago, before the Pensions Committee of this House, we had certain witnesses, one of whom represented the tubercular patients at the hospital at Hamilton, where they had adopted an industrial scheme whereby they are building houses on the outskirts of the city for tubercular patients and establishing what is known as a "vetcraft industry." Men of means have interested themselves in their behalf as they are anxious that the Government should do something for them. The promotees have made careful observations as to what lines of business can be carried on under the auspices of this organization with a view to making them a success. A witness who appeared before the committee to-day, Mr. Speaker, a shrewd young man who has evidently made a study of the subject, referred to the various industries which could be carried on profitably and without subjecting tuberculous patients to undue strain. But he made some statement which was rather significant, he said that so far as agriculture was concerned they did not intend to do anything because it was absolutely unprofitable. I am afraid that a great many hon. gentlemen wall not agree with me if I should concur in the view of that 
witness. Nevertheless it is very significant to-day to learn from a persual of the daily newspapers that many of the essential articles of food in Canada are being imported from Europe and South America and China where labour is cheap. These articles of food are coming into competition with Canadian products, and are taking the place of commodities that ought to be raised in this country. Why, Sir, look at our vast extent of territory which to-day is only occupied by some eight or nine millions of people. We have laid the foundations of great public works intended to aid in the settlement and development of the Dominion. We have built railways, we have dug canals, and we are building steamships to assist in carrying our produce to the various markets of the world. The foundations of a great system of transportation have been well and truly laid; and to-day we are anxiously waiting for people to come in and help develop this country, waiting for people to come here and fill the vacant places that need to be filled, and whose coming is justified by the immense area of this country, as yet so sparsely populated. The transportation system of Canada is in a very precarious condition to-day and I believe that it is more largely responsible for the existing unrest and the lack of employment than anything else. I believe that if we had lower railway rates in the Dominion you would not find the stagnation in business which you do find to-day. Who is responsible for the condition of our railways? It is not altogether due to the fact that we have built tQo far in advance of our needs, or rather that in many sections of the country there are railways paralleling each other, railways which should not have been built. Railway companies have been competing among themselves in order to obtain traffic, but they have not given that cheap service to the country which should have resulted from a competition in the real sense of the term. We find that during the war the railway unions of Canada, which were better organized perhaps than other unions, not only kept abreast of the high wages being paid to workers for turning out munitions and other necessities of war, but their remuneration was far in advance of that received in other branches of labour. The result is that it would appear as though the railway employees in Canada to-day considered that the railways were built for their convenience and benefit rather than for the con-

venience and benefit of the people as a whole.
As to the question of immigration we ought to be careful about the class of immigrants we permit to enter Canada. I have here a clipping which was published in a newspaper in 1913, just before the war broke out, and the article refers to information which had come from Berlin, that the Canadian Pacific Railway had succeeded in securing twenty thousand immigrants per month to come out to this country, and that these immigrants were mainly Austrians and people from southern Europe. There may have been some method in the policy of bringing immigrants to Canada which was pursued at that time; but in view of what has transpired during the past six or seven years we ought to be careful to see that the immigrants permitted to enter Canada are in sympathy with our laws and institutions. At the same time if we enforce a penalty, as it were, to the extent of 3250 against the entrance of desirable immigrants we are going to handicap our people in a way that nothing else can do. As has been already pointed out by previous speakers, labour was never more difficult to secure in the rural districts. Never before was it so difficult to secure satisfactory farm labour as it is at this particular time. I think it was the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. McQuarrie) who declared that the farmers do not treat their help properly and who proclaimed himself in favour of an eight-hour day, in order to overcome the difficult situation that confronts us. I say, and I have said it on previous occasions in this House, that what we need is labour and a class of labour that will not be too particular as to whether it works half an hour over the usual time or not. It is not an eight-hour day that is so necessary in many walks of life, but a desire to give value for the wages received. This is what is needed in order to establish confidence and put many of these industries on their feet again. My hon. friend says that the farmer should adopt the eight-hour day. Well we have to-day to consider the competition from Holland, Denmark, Argentine, and other countries whose products are now sold in Canada but of a quality that does not begin to compare with our own. Surely we are not going to permit such inferior importations to take the place of commodities which ought to be produced in our own country.
I had no intention of speaking on this resolution, I had not even read it before coming to the House this afternoon, but I do desire to put the Government on their guard against paying too much attention to the demands of some of the labour unions in Canada. These unions are asking not only that the hours of labour shall be cut down, but they are even fixing the amount of labour that a man will be permitted to do, with the result that if he exceeds the maximum he is fined by the union to which he belongs. It does not appear to be a question of giving value for what is received; it is an effort to curtail as much as possible what each individual man can do. How can a country expect to have prosperity under such conditions? If you follow such a policy out to its logical conclusion you must apply the same regulation to every other class in the community. The same standard must apply to all, which would mean that the Government would eventually have to take charge of the entire population and provide that they shall do just so much labour without competition, which all will admit, is an absolute impossibility. I do not believe it is advisable for a government to attempt to undertake anything that the people ought to do and are capable of doing for themselves. There are sufficient necessary duties devolving upon a government without its seeking new spheres of activity along that line. But I want to say again that the only hope for our country is to have competition whereby the best will come to the front, merit must be the test, because once you eliminate competition you are going to have stagnation. And that is the very thing sought to be accomplished by the so-called Independent Labour party of Canada. I realize that I may be saying something that will not be very popular in many parts of the country and it may be in certain sections of the constituency that I represent, but I have been accustomed to say exactly what I think on matters of public importance since I have been a member of this House, although, I recognize such frankness is not always popular in certain quarters. But I am so seized of the seriousness of the situation with which 5 p.m. we are confronted to-day that I welcome this opportunity to put on record my views in regard to this question. You must remove the shackles that are to-day placed on trade, you must permit natural and normal development, and you must see that our transportation

facilities are placed in such a position as will make them of the greatest possible use in the further development of the Dominion. Given these conditions, I am satisfied that the genius of our people will overcome the difficulties with which we are now surrounded.


Mr. J. W. KENNEDY (Glengarry and Stormont) :: Mr. Speaker, my only reason
for taking part in this debate is that the question of immigration is so closely related with that of employment. I think it is rather strange that a debate of this kind should have arisen, even at this time, in a country such as Canada, and I am surprised that any one would advocate the barring out of suitable immigrants when our broad acres and our many natural resources are waiting the necessary labour to develop them.
We have heard a great deal this afternoon about unemployment, but it has not been suggested that there is much unemployment in our rural sections. It has, however, been stated that the unemployment situation is very general in all our urban centres and very serious. This condition, according to some people, is due to the refusal of labour to work reasonable hours for reasonable wages; certain others have been disposed to blame this condition on the employers; but in this particular I think the discussion has really overlooked the actual cause. I submit, Sir, that the present serious labour situation is a very sad commentary on the fiscal policy which Canada has so foolishly followed during the last fifty years. This policy was entered upon to a certain extent to afford employment to labour. We have heard a great deal of argument along this line in the last few years, and even in the present session, in the Address which we had from His Excellency it was mentioned that the present Administration was still pursuing the policy of protection in order to afford employment to our labouring men. After following that policy for fifty years, is it not strange that we have such a serious unemployment situation in our urban centres to-day? Surely the advocates of protection will not further argue that-a continuance of that policy will afford permanent employment to the working men of this country. Protection has encouraged industry, but industry is dependent on so many conditions outside of itself that there are certain times when it flourishes very rapidly and demands a great deal of labour, while at other times it is beset by certain unfavourable conditions and it turns labour out. This is a great

hardship on the labouring man, for he cannot easily change his employment. Therefore I would suggest that it is very unwise to continue a policy of trying to build up in this country large industrial centres which are so dependent on external conditions. I would suggest instead a policy of encouraging some of our basic industries, such as agriculture, which is not so dependent on outside conditions, and which will afford permanent employment for many more thousands of labourers than we have at the present day.
Much has been said about permitting farm labourers to come into this country, and excluding artisans. Well, the farm labourer who has come to us in the past has, after spending a few months on the farm, usually drifted into the urban centres to become an artisan. That has been the experience of the past and will likely be the experience of the future so long as we follow a policy which makes agricultural labour so unremunerative. I was struck by a remark made by the hon. gentleman (Mr. Sutherland) who immediately preceded me, that if you eliminate competition you produce stagnation. I would suggest to him that the fiscal policy of protection tends toward that very thing, towards restricting competition, and so inevitably producing stagnation.
I want to combat one or two statements made by the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. McQuarrie). He intimated that the reason why agricultural labour was so scarce in this country was that hired men were not properly treated. I think he used the expression, that they were turned out into the back yard. I think the hon. gentleman admitted that he was not a farmer and was not familiar with farming conditions. This is quite evident or he would never have made such a statement.


Mr. SMITH:: Is not that partly true?


John Wilfred Kennedy: The hired man has usually the
same privileges, the same food and the same accommodation as the farmer and his family enjoy. The hon. member for New Westminster also stated that he advocated an eight-hour day for the farmer. Well, I am sure the majority of farmers would welcome an eight-hour day.


Ernest D'Israeli Smith: Are you sure of that?


John Wilfred Kennedy: I am quite sure they would welcome an eight-hour day on the farm.

But I might advise the hon. gentleman that if such a thing came to pass our urban population would very soon be paying possibly a dollar a pound for their butter and for their beef and bacon, fifty or sixty cents a pound for their cheese, a couple of dollars a dozen for their eggs, and so on down the list. That would be the inevitable result from the establishment of an eight-hour day on the farm. I think it would be very unfortunate if this resolution were concurred in and suitable immigration to this country restricted at the present time.


Mr. W. K. BALDWIN (Stanstead) :: Mr. Speaker, this, to me, is one of the most important resolutions which has been presented to the House this session. If we cast our eye over this broad Dominion, three or four thousand miles in its extent, and consider the proportion which our population bears to our railway mileage, to our vast agricultural possibilities, our great waterways, our splendid mineral and other resources, we must come to the conclusion that only by increasing our population through a wise immigration policy can these vast resources be developed and our country attain its fullest progress. We have an area comparable with that of the United States; see what they have done. It is only recently that they have had restrictive immigration laws of any kind. People come from the four corners of the earth, to that great country, and, as some hon. members have said here to-day, whether these immigrants be Norwegians or Swedes or Germans or Danes, they have been the best possible immigration agents and they look after their people as they come in. So unless we wish to retard and hold back the progress of this great Dominion we must work along progressive lines. Look at our railway system, our great agricultural and mining possibilities and our water-powers which, if developed, would enable us to get most of our coal in our own country instead of from Pennsylvania and to keep our money at home. All these branches of development need help, need the assistance of labour. Let me say right here that the climatic conditions of this country are such as to discourage the coming here of those nomadic races who live by putting their hands into the other fellow's pocket. We do not want that class of people; we want a better class. We do not want loafers; we have enough of them already. I am interested in some large undertakings and have been for many years, and I can say that there never was a time when it was harder to get labour than it,is to-day. We talk about
farmers and the need for production. Well, the value of the products of the farm has declined to the extent of one-third, and if the farmer is to go ahead, if he is to extend his tillable land, he must be enabled to get labour and to get it at rates more consistent with the prevailing prices of farm products.
We know that labour creates all things, all that we eat and use and wear, and our population must increase if this country of ours is to go along as it should. It is appalling to see hon. members looking no further than their own constituencies, their own little neighbourhoods. The great province from which I come, with all its important industries and its agricultural possibilities, loses one-half the people born within its borders-people who are persuaded to go down to the New England States through the inducements of cheap land and high wages.
Mention has been made of the need for domestic servants. Well, many who come from the Old Land and who would otherwise act in the capacity of domestic servants are absorbed in the Civil Service of Canada. In my opinion we have in this country-and I care not who hears it-three civil servants where we should have one, and here is where a great deal of our domestic help is absorbed. Then there are the telephone concerns and other institutions which want to employ people during a few hours each day; it is ridiculous. I know captains of industry in this country who work fifteen hours a day-there are -not many of them, because it does not take a great many captains of industry to make a country grow; but they are all handicapped by the lack of labour. Agriculture is especially handicapped, and will be until we can get labour more cheaply. We are handicapped in a sense, even by the three thousand miles of border line between this country and the rich and powerful United States, a line so easily crossed by our people who seek to take advantage of the inducements offered by that country. They are re-claiming their marsh lands, re-claiming their arid lands by irrigation, even reclaiming lands along the Atlantic coast which are lower than the sea level. They are doing all these things to develop that wonderful country, and they are offering strong inducements to Canadians to go down there. I submit that we should have a system under which any one can come to this country who is law-abiding and willing to work.


Mr. J. R. WILSON (Saskatoon) :: Mr. Speaker, the resolution before the House

is a most important one and if concurred in might give rise to far-reaching and serious results. I believe, Sir, that there is inseparably bound up with this question of immigration the question whether this country is to progress or to stand still. Prior to the war, immigration was, so to speak, the life-blood of Canada, infusing new life and progress into our country.
I agree that it may be well for us to restrict certain classes of immigration; certainly we do not need many more of certain classes of people. What we do require are persons who will settle on our rich agricultural lands, which are awaiting the touch of the hand of man to blossom forth and to produce all that is required for man's sustenance.
We have in the three prairie provinces about 1,100,000 people who are located on the land, holding in the neighbourhood of-
26.000.	000 acres. It is estimated that the arable land in those provinces consists of about
152.000.	000 acres. If this land were settled even to the extent that the occupied parts of the provinces are now settled-which is sparsely-and brought under cultivation, there would be located on the land in these three prairie provinces about 8,000,000 people thus doubling our present population. It seems to me that the only solution of some of the problems which face us is a strong immigration policy to settle these vacant lands which are capable of valuable production.
It also seems to me that, in past years, in our policy of subsidizing railways, we were working at the wrong end. We were subsidizing and assisting railways to pay interest on bonds, which interest the railways were unable to meet owing to their having been built in advance of the settlement of the country. When the railways found that they were unable, through lack of traffic, to earn sufficient to pay their way, in years gone by they approached the Government, and the Government handed out assistance. At that time it was my opinion, if assistance that had been given in order railways had possibly been given in order to encourage agriculture and to induce men to go on the lands of the West, we, perhaps, would not have had the railways coming to the Government with their hands out for assistance to pay interest on bonds.
In this regard I should like to give an illustration of something that happened not so many years ago. In 1914-this is a matter of history-hon. members will remember that we had a very dry season in the West; that many farmers, through failure of

crops, were faced with the problem of securing seed, and they had no money with which to secure it. The Government came to their assistance and furnished seed at an expense of about $10,000,000. What did that return in wealth to this country? At that time I was managing one of the Government elevators and I was in fairly close touch with this proposition, because there passed through my hands about a million and a half bushels of that seed I kept track of the districts into which the seed went. As things turned out, ir 1915, we had, I will admit, an abnormallj heavy crop; but the grain that was furnished by the Government, purchased at a cost of about $10,000,000, returned in wealth to the farmers of Canada, which after all means Canada as a whole, at a very conservative estimate, about $150,000,000. But the return did not stop there. If that grain was transported via our allCanadian route from its point of origin to the Atlantic seaboard, it brought about $35,000,000 to the transportation companies. I give that as an illustration of my statement that I think we have been working at the wrong end with our railways in helping them to meet deficits. The only way in which we can solve the railway problem which is now confronting us is by increasing settlement on our western land, increasing production and thereby increasing traffic and revenue to our railways.
I think everyone admits that agriculture has been in the past, is at present, and will be, for some years to come, the basic industry of Canada. I was a little bit interested and amused to hear the hon. member for Glengarry and Stormont (Mr. Kennedy) blame the fiscal policy of this country for the unemployment which exists at the present time in our cities. This is a condition which prevails throughout the world, as can easily be found by correspondence with foreign countries or conversing with men who have travelled through them. There is not in the world to-day another country in which conditions, generally speaking, are as good as they are in Canada. Many problems confront us; but if we hold to a national spirit of self-reliance and have some confidence in our ability to meet and surmount those obstacles, we will meet and surmount them. I feel certain that this resolution will not be accepted, or taken very seriously, by members of the House, and it would be a calamity if it were.

The hon. member for George Etienne Cartier (Mr. Jacobs) referred to some impediments put in the way of immigrants coming into this country. I have had experience in dealing with some cases, and the regulations seem to me to be a little drastic, to work a hardship, and to be somewhat unfair. Prospective settlers who buy a ticket, possibly en route, who may be laid up for a month or two on account of illness and who then continue their journey, are debarred from entry into Canada owing to the journey not having been a continuous one. Some cases have occurred where part of the family is in Canada. This works a hardship, and it is something that should be taken note of.
As I said some few minutes ago, I did not intend to speak on this question, and I do not wish to take up any more of the time of the House, as time is passing and I know the Minister of Immigration and Colonization (Mr. Calder) wishes to have a little time in which to give us some information and probably an outline of what his policy in the future will be. In con-elusion, I think this $250 qualification for the class of immigrants that we are in need of in this country, is putting a handicap on their coming in, and it should be seriously considered whether we should put any impediment in the way of the entry into Canada of the class which we are most in need of and most desirous of having. We all admit that the great need of this country is more people. People at the present time seem to be inclined to move, and while they have that inclination and we being in need of more people, now is the time for us to bestir ourselves and take advantage of the opportunity of securing as many as possible of the class of immigrants that we desire to have.


Lucien Cannon: Mr. Speaker, I wish to offer just a few brief remarks on the resolution which is before us for debate. First of all, I am in accord with the hon. member for Saskatoon (Mr. Wilson) when he says that the resolution probably goes too far. I would not favour barring altogether immigration into Canada, but I would favour a policy, on the part of the Government, under present conditions of restricting immigration to a certain extent. When one is considering this problem of immigration into Canada, the first consideration which comes to one's mind is: whence at the present time can immigrants come into Canada?
Immigration certainly cannot come from Africa, for obvious reasons. Nor can it come from Asia. We have endeavoured in the past, and we are still endeavouring now, not only to restrict, but to bar altogether, immigration from Asiatic countries. Therefore, immigration can only come from the United States or from Europe. As regards American immigration, the more we have the better for Canada. As regards immigration from European sources, I think we should be very cautious and very careful; in fact, we cannot be too cautious or too careful. Immigrants cannot come into Canada from France, they cannot come from Belgium, they cannot come from any of the allied countries in any great numbers. We can only expect European immigration from the central Empires or from Russia. Now is that immigration desirable? Should we open wide our gates to Russian immigration, to German immigration, to Austrian immigration? That is a question of very great importance, and I am quite sure that before coming to any definite conclusion hon. members of this House will think the matter over very, very seriously.


Samuel William Jacobs: May I point out that
Austrian and German immigration is debarred completely from Canada?


Lucien Cannon: Notwithstanding the
laws or regulations that might exist as regards Austrian or German immigration, these people manage in some way or other to evade the laws which exist in their own country.


Samuel William Jacobs: The Canadian law prevents them from entering here.


Lucien Cannon: They evade the law in Germany and in Austria, and it is only when the Canadian laws are enforced that these immigrants are kept from coming into Canada in as great numbers as they desire to come.


Samuel William Jacobs: They cannot, under the Canadian law, enter this country.


Lucien Cannon: They have such laws in both Germany and Austria, and I say that these people evade the laws of their own country and come here.


Samuel William Jacobs: But they cannot land in Canada.


Lucien Cannon: That is exactly the
question I am discussing. Should we allow

them to land in as great numbers as they now do land in Canada? German immigrants who have come to Canada and have settled here have become very good citizens. The German immigrants who came to Ontario, for instance, many years ago have become very good citizens. We have a striking example of how good a Canadian citizen a man of German descent may be in the person of my hon. friend who represents the constituency of North Waterloo (Mr. Euler). Therefore, I do not say that an immigrant should be debarred from Canada just because he is an Austrian or a German or a Russian, hut I say that the more care the Government takes to examine into each particular and special case, the better it will be for the welfare of our country.
I have heard it said this afternoon that it is in the interests of Canada that our' population should be increased. Some hon. members have referred to the railway situation, saying that in order to meet the deficits we are facing at the present time we ought to have an increased population, which would mean an increased traffic. There is no doubt about that, but there is a higher consideration than the pecuniary one. There is the very much higher consideration of moulding a national spirit in Canada. Every immigrant who comes to Canada should be of such a type and character that the Government can hope that within a reasonable period, if not the immigrant himself, his next descendants will cease to be foreigners, and become good Canadian citizens. Have we succeeded so far in Canada in assimilating our immigration? I do not think we have. We still have in the western provinces, and even in the province of Ontario; settlements which we might call foreign. Our policy so far as that is concerned has not been as perfect as it might have been, especially when we compare the results obtained in the United States along this line. Immigration has flowed into the United States in very great numbers. Thousands and hundreds of thousands of immigrants _ have gone in there every year for the past century, and in most cases they have become good American citizens and are proud to declare to-day that they are American citizens. Let the Minister* of Immigration and Colonisation see to it that whatever immigration we have into Canada is of such a kind that very soon the new settlers will become Canadian citizens, not 
Germans, or Austrians, or Russians, or foreigners of any kind, but real Canadian citizens, enjoying the privileges and the rights of Canadian citizens, and realizing to the full the liberty and freedom that is given them under our Canadian institutions.
If we have not obtained as good results as we might have done from our foreign immigration, I lay the blame at the door of the present Government to a very great extent, and I am sorry to say that one of those who is responsible to a very large extent for the framing and moulding of that policy is the Minister of Immigration himself. How can we expect the foreigners who come to Canada to become Canadian citizens and assimilate themselves to our customs and our ways and our institutions if me debar them, as they have been debarred by the present Government, from their rights and privileges of citizenship when election time comes. I do not wish to discuss the law which governed the Iasi general election of 1917, but I wish to say to the Minister of Immigration, who knew fully the defects of that law and who is aware of its eveil consequences, that I hope so long as he remains in the. Government he will see that justice is done to every element in Canada, and if justice is done to every element in Canada, no matter how it may be composed, very soon we shall be able to promote in this country a truly national spirit.
I said that I thought the resolution went too far, but that, on the other hand, I believed the Government was right in restricting to a very great extent immigration under present conditions. But the Government ought to do more. If we are to open up new territory, if we are to develop our industries, if we are to make a success of our railways, we must have population in Canada. Now population is to be obtained not only from outside countries. Why should not the Government of Canada adopt a policy of promoting increased population from our native sources? The citizens of the province of Quebec understand fully their duties towards the State and have very large families. We do not need immigration from outside sources to develop our province. The French Canadians see to that themselves; they encourage the raising of large families. Now, why should not the Government adopt this principle as part of their policy and encourage throughout the provinces of Canada the same condition of things as exists in Quebec? Let the people in the English provinces have families num-

bering fifteen, twenty, twenty-five and thirty children, and very soon the problem which confronts the Minister of Immigration will disappear. The hon. gentleman receives this suggestion with a smile, but let me tell him that I offer it in all seriousness, and am only endorsing sentiments uttered by a very eminent statesman of the United States a few years ago-I refer to Theodore Roosevelt-when he spoke on the dangers of race suicide. Let us see to it in Canada that our race does not extinguish itself through the want of children and families. Let every citizen not only perform his political duties towards the state, but let him thoroughly appreciate the full responsibilities of fatherhood, and we shall have a natural increase in population which will, to a great extent, solve the problem we are discussing this afternoon.
I have been much longer than I intended, but before concluding my remarks I wish to say to the Government that on this side of the House we will support any policy which, will make for a proper, a sensible, and a wise development of this country of ours. The policy which was adopted by a former Minister of the Interior, the Hon. Mr. Sifton, who opened wide the doors of Canada to immigration, had very bad consequences. Now, if on the one hand we oppose that indiscriminate policy, we will, on the other hand, favour a reasonable immigration, restricted where necessary, and all the more so under present world conditions, which are of so troublous a character that it behooves us to follow the example of our neighbours to the South, to go very slowly and moderately, not looking to quantity, but having in view the quality of the new citizens to whom we may open the doors of Canada.


Mr. ANGUS McDONALD (Timiska-ming) :: I did not intend to speak on this
resolution, but it has provoked so much discussion that I think it is well for me, as the only real labour member in this House, to put myself on record on the subject. Let me say at once that I am not in favour of the resolution of my hon. friend from St. Mary (Mr. Deslauriers) as it stands. I would support a resolution of this nature to some extent if it contained what I might describe as a classification. I believe the statement has been attributed to the exMinister of Finance (Sir Thomas White) that the enormous debt with which the people of this country are saddled, and which future generations will have to discharge-a debt which, if we take history
into account, it is not impossible we may have as a burden for centuries-will have to be paid from the top six inches of Canadian soil. I want to ask hon. members, both farmers and others, if they ever saw not only the first six inches, but the first six feet, or six hundred feet, of Canadian or any other soil produce anything without the application and energy and skill on the part of the people. This resolution has elicited certain opinions which I think the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Tolmie) as well as the Minister of Immigration (Mr. Calder) might well take into consideration.
I am in favour of immigration under certain conditions. We need more population on the land in order to distribute more widely the enormous debt which at present possibly less than ten millions of people are responsible for. I would support an immigration policy if it were directed differently from the way things have gone in the past. I think we should aim at securing good citizens, people who would apply themselves to the land in order to open up the vast millions of acres which we have waiting for settlers, instead of leaving the direction of immigration in the hands of transportation companies who stand to benefit lavishly thereby.
Some hon. members say that there are many idle men in Canada. We have in this country to-day the sorry spectacle of some 500,000 people, who are idle, and together with their dependents they number probably a million and a half, out of a population of perhaps ten millions. This is a sad spectacle indeed in this glorious land of ours which we profess to be so proud of. Are these people idle by choice? Some hon. members suggest that the labour men of this country are idle because they are lazy. Well, were the people lazy who were laid off in Hamilton in the last week, as my hon. friend from New Westminster (Mr. McQuarrie), said? Were they lazy when they were working right up to the time they were laid off? Not by any means; and the man who says that the entire labour force of this country is lazy, makes that statement for a purpose which has no bearing on this resolution. Now, it is the duty of the farmers to think over this matter seriously. There are 500,000 men or thereabouts idle in Canada, and we have bread lines in every centre of population in the country. Why, the condition of affairs is staggering, and the Domniion Government if my information is correct, is asked to contribute towards the sustenance of men in Toronto,

Winnipeg, Vancouver and Montreal. I do not think, in view of these things, that it is fair for any farmer to rail at the condition of the working men, who are idle, not through any fault of their own, and who are only too anxious to get employment. They have been thrown out of work after the industrial concerns have reaped great profits from their energy.
I will not take up much more time of the House, but there is one hon. member to whom I should like to reply, and that is my good Scotch friend from South Oxford (Mr. Sutherland). That hon. member says that we want men who are willing to give an extra hour, if necessary. I give my hon. friend the right hand of fellowship so far as that is concerned, and I will go further than he did and say that 1 am one of those working men who like to see a man give an honest day for an honest dollar. But I want to tell you, Mr. Speaker, that we want to see the farmers apply this principle to themselves, and not stick at the last farthing. I have been on the farm; I was raised there to some extent, and I know something at least about agriculture. I am yet to find a farmer who will give you 2,240 pounds of hay for a ton anywhere, and I make that statement having farmed myself. Let me tell this House, Mr. Speaker, that the labouring men, like the rest of us, are human and are somewhat like politicians. No doubt they get into a rut in the centres of population because an inducement is there offered. In the cities, they can get work the year round if they want it, but this is not the case on the farm, not on the western farms at any rate. I worked there myself. I got work for three months in the year, and for the other nine months the attitude of the farmers was this: You can shift for yourself after you are through with us.
Something must be done for the working man; he cannot starve for nine months while he is waiting for the three months' work which the West offers. Of course he may be in the province of Ontario but is he likely to get work all the year round with a man who may be only farming one hundred acres. The average workman does not have employment the year round, and what are you going to do with him during the time he is idle? We want to see some policy of a reasonable character adopted; and it will be unfortunate if the labour situation to-day is not looked into to a little further extent than it is investigated by politicians. That brings me back to the point I left a little while ago, and [Mr. McDonald.I
that is that the workingman is just like the politician in this chamber-he gets into a rut and he hates to be taken away from it; he has to be driven out just as a great many politicians have been driven out of Ottawa. I think that if the pleas which the leader of the Opposition has been making here for the last four or five weeks had been successful, the labouring people of Canada would have demonstrated beyond the faintest suspicion of doubt that a great many members who are now sitting here would never return to Parliament again. I do not want to occupy any more time; I simply wish to place on record the statement that I consider some of the things that have been said here as a direct insult to the labouring class of this country. It is a wonder to me that men-who perhaps have sons earning their living under the very hard and very disagreeable conditions which the workingman experiences-could sit here and listen to aspersions such as were hurled at labour this afternoon by the hon. member for Chateauguay-Huntingdon (Mr. Robb).


Mr. H. C. HOCKEN (West Toronto) :: I was very much pleased to hear the hon. member for Dorchester (Mr. Cannon) emphasize the necessity of developing a real Canadian spirit among the people of this country. I entirely agree with him that in the past we have admitted altogether too many persons to Canada to participate in the free land and the rest of the advantages that the Dominion offers, and who have shown very little desire to be assimilated. The result is that there are many sections of Canada where foreign ideals, the ideals of Central Europe, predominate among the majority of the people. They have been allowed to colonize in such a way that it is now a matter of extraordinary difficulty to effect in their case that assimilation so necessary to make them good Canadian citizens. Located in this and that corner of the prairie these people are removed from that particular environment which would assist materially in giving them Canadian ideals. Segregated and living in their own communities, they not only have no desire to assimilate with the Canadian population, but they resist every attempt that is made to influence them to do so. We find such a situation exists to a far too great extent in Western Canada and it is a most deplorable thing because, at some time or other, this Parliament must undertake a Canadianizing movement which will make of these men Canadian citizens, understanding British

institutions and desirous of being governed by them.
We have a country here capable of maintaining, in as great comfort as any of us live to-day, a population of one hundred or perhaps one hundred and fifty millions. We have a better country than there is to the south of us, and we have a climate that is designed to produce the very best type of humanity. The conditions in Canada are altogether different from those in the neighbouring republic where, south of the Mason and Dixon line, there are probably from thirty to forty millions of people who really do not have to work, and who do not work in the sense that a man works north of the forty-ninth parallel. That is the greatest handicap under which our neighbours to the south live, and it constitutes for them a problem, due to the enervating character of the climate in that sub-tropical region, which to my mind is practically insoluble. Now we have a different country and a different climate; and after you cross the forty-ninth parallel, you have to work, or somebody has to work for you, or you will starve or freeze to death. So that I believe the climate of Canada is its greatest asset.
Our great western country is capable of producing enormously, and of sustaining life under the very best conditions, and it is a matter of very negative concern to every Canadian who wants to see this country properly developed that the West should be filled up with industrious men. I believe that if a man is half industrious and is placed in that country he will become wholly industrious-I think that the conditions under which he would have to live would make him so, because the climate is calculated to give him additional energy both mental and physical. I think the immigration policy of this country ought to be to encourage every man who understands British institutions to come to Canada, and especially those who are able and willing to go upon the land. We have in the province of Ontario fifty or sixty million acres of as good land as there is anywhere else in the Dominion, but that great district is almost untenanted. There is a field for immigration in that northern territory where men can go and settle on free land, or what is practically free land -costing, I think, only a dollar an acre- and, after a few years of steady and perhaps laborious effort, clear for himself and for his family a home that will sustain them as long as they live. It has never been the policy of the Dominion Government to attempt to settle the province of Ontario.
I am not complaining about that particularly, but I think there are a large number of people in the Old Land who would find themselves much more comfortably placed in a wooded country like northern Ontario than they would on the western prairies.
I also believe that there are a very large number of men in the Old Country, possessed of sufficient means, who should be properly encouraged and directed to come to Canada and buy farms,-but developed farms, improved land. I am sure they would find the opportunities here superior to those which present themselves at home. So, Sir, I take it that the policy of the Government in the matter of immigration should be to adhere to the law which excludes-I think for about ten years except under certain very narrow restrictions- immigrants from central Europe, and to undertake an intensive campaign in Great Britain and Ireland to bring men to this country who understand our institutions, and to increase the number of men in the Dominion who will aid in assimilating the foreign element. In that way they will do a great deal to assist us to Canadianize that foreign element, some of whose members after being here ten or fifteen years do not yet understand our institutions, and do not want to understand them.
I have a great deal of sympathy, too, with the hon. member for Temiskaming (Mr. McDonald). Like him I ain a labouring man, and have been all my life. I do not think the hon. member has worked nearly as hard as I have, and I am sure he has not worked as long. Therefore I always have sympathy for the working man. But the working man can hardly expect to be employed in industries which are insolvent, nor can he expect the proprietor to run deeper into insolvency in order to give him employment. To my mind that is mainly the reason why there has been so much unemployment in this country during the last few months. We had in Toronto, for instance, a large industry, the Dominion Shipbuilding company. That company had some large contracts, taken at what they considered to be a good price, but it became insolvent, and the reason given for its insolvency was not merely high wages, but the impossibility of getting the men to do a fair day's work. I am not in the shipbuilding business, but that is the statement of the assignee of the company. I have it from other sources, sir, and quite reliable sources, that in some of the trades the men during the last year or two, particularly during the last year, refused to give their employers the efficiency

of which they were capable. That has to be corrected, and I think the only way it can be corrected is by such a period of depression as we are going through at the present time. I know the great majority of working men are desirous of giving a fair day's work, and they do give a fair day's work, but during the last year a very large proportion made no pretensions of giving an adequate return for the wages they received. No employer will complain about wages if he gets the equivalent in work, and that is exactly where labour has fallen down. I could tell my hon. friend of instances in my own city where men have been doing twice the amount of outside work in the winter season that they did last summer. There is only one deduction to be drawn, and that is that they did not do a fair day's work in the summer season. That idea of rendering a minimum return was permeating all labour unions, not only to the lessening of production, but to the detriment of the men themselves, for they were losing their personal efficiency, they were becoming less competent, and they were suffering moral and spiritual deterioration. I hope, that what we have gone through during the last few months has put an end to that mistaken idea. I have no desire to see reductions in wages and I have no fear that there will be if our working men will do their share and give a fair honest day's work to their employers.


Hon. J. A. CALDER (Minister of Immigration and Colonization) :: Mr. Speaker, this is a very important subject, I have followed closely the opinions expressed during the discussion this afternoon, and I had hoped to deal with many of the points which were raised. My suggestion would be, if the hon. member who has introduced the resolution agrees, that the resolution itself be dropped. We have had a long discussion and the field has been very well covered, and it is my purpose during the coming week, if it can possibly be arranged in connection with the Estimates for the department of Immigration to make a statement to the House that will not only cover the points raised this afternoon but will touch on the other phases as well. The discussion in that way will be thrown open again, and any hon. gentleman who desires to take part will have the fullest opportunity on that occasion. So, if it is agreeable to the hon. gentleman to withdraw his resolution, I can assure him there will be the fullest opportunity very shortly for discussion of the kind which I have mentioned.


Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER:: Is it the
pleasure of the House that the hon. member for St. Mary have leave to withdraw his resolution?
Some hon. MEMBERS? Carried.


Georges Henri Boivin: The resolution is withdrawn.
At six o'clock the House adjourned without question put, pursuant to rule.
Thursday, March 31, 1921